


A Scent of Lavender

by decoy_ocelot, Fontainebleau



Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: Developing Relationship, M/M, Painted Angels AU, Period-Typical Racism, Realistic Depiction of Prostitution in the Old West, no graphic scenes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-02
Updated: 2018-09-02
Packaged: 2019-07-05 22:57:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15873408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/decoy_ocelot/pseuds/decoy_ocelot, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fontainebleau/pseuds/Fontainebleau
Summary: Early in their partnership, Billy and Goodnight pass through the one-horse town of Copperhead, providing a welcome new interest for Tess and her fellow prostitutes at the town’s only saloon, the Paradise. To Goodnight’s surprise Billy strikes up an acquaintance with Tess, setting in motion a series of events which it turns out none of them fully understands.





	A Scent of Lavender

**Author's Note:**

> This is my contribution to The Magnificent Seven Big Bang 2018, in collaboration with the wonderful decoy-ocelot (decoy-ocelot.tumblr.com) whose perfect art adds so much to this!
> 
> This fic carries no archive warnings because it offers what I hope is a realistic depiction of the lives of prostitutes in the Old West, and consequently contains references to the sexual exploitation of women and children; but it contains no scenes of sex or violence as a warning would imply. 
> 
> It is inspired by the (now obscure) movie _Painted Angels_ , and is in its way a true tragedy: everyone acts for what they think is the best, but nothing turns out as expected.

 

 

‘Can’t be so far now.’ Billy eases up in his saddle; it’s been a good day’s ride, and a week of travelling before that. 

Goody favours him with a cheerful grin. ‘And I for one am ready for what civilisation has to offer us. Couple of nights in a decent bed, a hot bath and whatever passes for haute cuisine in Copperhead, though I don’t hold too much optimism on that score.’ Before they met he’d had no idea a man could talk so much. ‘Not before time. Living off the land’s not my strong suit, and though I hate to say it, not yours either.’ 

Billy grunts disagreement, but Goody’s not deterred. ‘These trapper types, they always insist you can live off roots and berries, but it’s a sight harder than you’d think.’ There’s a pause as something crosses his face, like a stone thrown into a pool, then it clears and he’s off again. ‘My cousin Remy once had the idea we should hunt frogs and cook them, but have you ever tried catching a frog…’

At first Billy had mistaken it for nervous chatter: this unwilling bounty-hunter with the strange name had looked jumpy enough at their evening’s camp, a tremor in his hands as he pulled on his flask, and more than a few minutes’ silence would have him raising his head uneasily, shoulders hunching. Billy just watched from the other side of the fire: he knew there was nothing out there to worry about, and listened as Goodnight began another meandering tale of his travels. 

But it was the same by day as they rode along, when Goodnight was relaxed and unwary, the sun on his weatherbeaten face: he just didn’t seem able to go without musing aloud, one topic reminding him of the next, and if Billy didn’t do anything to prompt him, he didn’t try to stop him either, and that seemed to be all the encouragement Goodnight needed, turning to him with a flashing smile at one of his own jokes, rattling on with bits of poetry thrown in, until he won a glance of amusement or a reluctant smile.

Goody’s like a creek, Billy’s learned. Chattering along, bright and sparkling like those blue eyes of his, a sound to keep you company. Light on the surface, but it goes deep underneath, down to where the light fades as you dive under, dark and full of weed that will wind your limbs and drag you down. That’s where Goody goes some nights, thrashing and panicking, and it takes Billy to bring him back up, gasping for air like a drowning man. They don’t talk about it, the time he spends waiting, a patient hand soothing gently over his arm or his back until Goody’s shivers gradually subside, when they stir up the fire again and sit smoking till dawn colours the sky pink; and in the morning light the demons are banished and the creek flows clear again.

‘…Remy choked down two bites of it, then tipped the whole pot onto the fire.’ By the end of Goody’s story they’ve halted on the top of a low crumbling bluff where they can see down directly onto the town that’s their goal, though they’ll need to swing around to the south to get down the slope. 

Billy surveys it. ‘Pretty small.’ It is small, maybe not quite a one-horse town, but sparse even by their standards. A road runs in and out beside the greenish river that gives it its name; there’s a handful of stores, a stable and blacksmith’s, a sheriff’s office and a surprisingly large saloon. 

Goodnight smiles encouragingly. ‘Look on the bright side: we can guarantee a place like this will be short of entertainment. Stage a fight, show off some fancy shooting, clean up at cards.’ The enthusiasm lighting his face is contagious. 

‘Should be easy enough to impress,’ Billy allows. 

Goodnight winks. ‘Bet they haven’t seen gentlemen so fine for a while.’ 

Billy tips his hat over his eyes. He can tell when someone’s flirting.

It’s made a difference, partnering with a white man. It galls his pride, when men’s eyes flick straight over him and they address themselves to Goody, when he reads the atmosphere in a store or a stable and hands his reins over without a word or stalks outside to smoke and wait, but day to day it’s easier: fewer fights not of his choosing, better sleeping, and best of all, this loudmouth to talk him up, _Took on the whole bar bare-knuckled, never seen such a dead shot_ , egging men on to brag and put up their cash, then facing them down the way he never could when it’s time for them to pay up.

 _Equal shares_ , he’d stated flatly at the beginning, and he’d expected to have to argue it, but Goodnight’s never been other than fair and honest, your share and my share, and Billy’s living better, earning more and splitting provisions between two. He’s still taking the rough end of the work but he’d be doing that anyway, and without anyone to fuss over a black eye, to doctor his cuts and brew up the morning coffee when he’s sore. 

Billy doesn’t need him. But he likes him, likes the way Goody works to make him laugh, soaking up his attention like a plant turning to the sun. He likes the way that he doesn’t pry, how he listens on the odd occasion when Billy wants to talk; he lets him tell him something in halting sentences, waits until Billy’s words run dry, and then just talks on. He doesn’t dig, and he’s never used what Billy’s revealed against him; he takes the confidence as a compliment. And so _as far as the next town_ has turned into _for the next while_ and then into _why don’t we try this…_ and they’ve become a partnership.

\--

I was sitting out front when the two of them come riding in: Adams likes us girls to sit round outside, says it’s good advertising. So me and Louisa and Jilly were taking the air, Louisa was smoking one of her little cheroots and we were talking about Mrs Winters from the store who’d just passed by still wearing the same dress she’s had for years, you’d think a man with money like her husband would want to see her in something better, when we heard the sound of hooves and saw two men come clattering down the street. 

‘New custom,’ said Louisa, blowing out a stream of smoke, and I could see why she was interested: they looked a cut above the regular types we see here, the one in grey with a chain across his vest and high boots, and the other all in black in a tailcoat. 

‘What d’you think they’re here for?’ asked Jilly, but wasn’t any of us could say: they didn’t look to be working men, but they weren’t in the stage or driving a carriage like respectable folk either. 

‘Guess they’ll be heading our way soon enough,’ Louisa said, and she was right there: Paradise is the only bar in town, Adams sees to that, and liquor and girls is what most men want when they’re fresh in town. ‘Dibs on the smart-dressed one,’ she added, and I was just starting to ask, ‘Who gave you first pick?’ when Amos said from the doorway, ‘Bit ahead of yourself, ain’t you?’ 

He always acts surly with us, and this time wasn’t no exception. ‘Those two ain’t come in through the door yet, but there’s men inside crying out for female company, so get your asses through here and start earning.’ Amos fancies he’s Adams’ right-hand man, he’s always saying, _Adams and me_ this and that, so he likes to boss us whores about. 

‘Where’s Netty and Sarah, then?’ I asked him, but Amos just scowled. Netty’s his favourite, everyone knows that, so he wouldn’t be after her to attend to some grubby miners. 

Jilly jumped up to go in, and Louisa stubbed out her cheroot and went too, so I had no choice but to follow, but as I went I looked back at Mr Fancy-Dressed and his friend handing over their horses to Webster at the livery, and I thought, _We’ll see who gets first chance with ‘em yet_. 

_I never supposed I’d work as a whore, ain’t no girl who’d choose that, but Mama said she needed me to: she’d got too sick to work, all skinny and coughing, and if she couldn’t work then we didn’t have no other way to get money. I said I’d sew, or be a maid, but warn’t no one would take on a girl from the whorehouse; and then I said, if I had to stay at the Paradise I could work in the kitchen, I’d work real hard, but Mr Adams said they had enough hands in the kitchen and for sweeping: what he needed was a new whore, and young and pretty was best._

_I never wanted to, but Mama said it wouldn’t be for long; and I did it so Mary wouldn’t have to, and so Tom could get older. He said when he was growed up he’d work for all of us, Mama and Mary and me, and we’d have a proper house where we could all live together, with apple trees and a horse and carriage… But he was just a boy then, and all the work he could get was scaring crows or carrying water, and Mama said if we were all of us to eat it was up to me._

_That first night they dressed me up in some of their clothes and put my hair up and painted my face – I was so scared, and when they took me to the top of the stairs, with all the men staring and shouting below, I took hold of Netty and said, ‘Ain’t there another way?’ But she pinched my cheek and said I was a brave girl, that the first night would be the worst, and then it would be done with._

_She looked after me best she could, and I’m grateful for that now: she made sure my first was a civilised man who called me Miss and didn’t mind that I was frightened and didn’t know what to do; but that he was polite didn’t stop him doing what he came for. And then -- just one after another, farmhands and miners and men I knew had wives, some of them dirty and none of them caring if they hurt me or not. But I didn’t cry: Mr Adams would slap any girl who cried, said it was bad for trade to have the whores red-eyed, and I knew Mama would be sorry if she saw I’d been crying, so I didn’t. And Netty was right, first night was the worst, and after that it never seemed so bad._

\--

Jilly went off to sit with the miners right away, she’ll do what she’s told ‘cause she ain’t so bright, but Louisa, she just took herself off out back and Amos didn’t say nothing to her ‘cause she’s Adams’ favourite right now, has been for months. ‘Long as she’s sleeping upstairs with the boss instead of down with the rest of us she can get away with being picky and she plays it all the time; I knew she meant to wait until the men we’d seen came in. So I thought, well, if she won’t then I won’t either, and the miners weren’t no great prize, both of ‘em half drunk already, and the way they were grabbing at Jilly they hadn’t seen a woman in months.

I went to sit at the bar, but Amos pushed a bottle across to me and told me, ‘Take ‘em some more drinks.’ I was about to try if I could sweet-talk him, see how far I could get: he ain’t easy like Joe – Joe’ll take a joke and let things slide – but making a man do what you want and have him think it’s his idea, well, that’s a woman’s greatest trick, ain’t it? 

So I was just setting in to leaning on the bar and giving him a look down my blouse when Netty came up behind me and told me, ‘You heard.’ She don’t like us teasing at Amos: can’t rightly say she’s sweet on him, Netty ain’t sweet on anybody, but they have an arrangement, and she don’t like to see a girl younger and prettier than her queering her pitch. ‘Money’s not going to leap out their pockets on its own,’ she said, and I thought I’d just have to go over and act pleased when they stuck their hands up my skirt, but just then the door swung open and in came Mr Fancy-Dressed and his friend in black, and damn me if he wasn’t a Chinaman, with a belt round his waist all over knives. 

‘Want me to fetch Joe?’ I asked, quick-like, and Amos nodded; then he pushed the bottle over to Netty and said, ‘You see to those fellas,’ and there wasn’t nothing she could do but take it and go.

\--

‘Fancy name,’ comments Goodnight as they push through the doors, and the Paradise Saloon is fancy, big, with a faro table in the middle and smaller tables all round; there’s a wide lettered mirror behind the bar advertising Old Forester Whisky and a brass rail at its foot. Shrieks and whoops are coming from one table where two men are groping at one of the girls and there’s a scattering of daytime drunks, but further back there’s what looks like a serious-looking game of cards going on. ‘Allow me,’ he adds, to take the edge off the moment: there’s always an element of uncertainty when Billy walks into a bar, though nine times out of ten Goodnight’s charm is enough to ride it out. 

He doubts there’ll be trouble this time: joint this size in a town so small must need every paying customer it can get. Sure enough, though the barkeep casts an assessing eye at Billy and looks over at a skinny man at the other end of the counter, he serves them without protest. 

‘Passing through or fixing to stay?’ he asks gruffly; ‘Stay a while,’ says Goodnight easily. ‘Spend a few nights, little easy living, maybe make some entertainment.’ He spins a dollar on the wooden countertop. ‘Got a room here?’ 

Billy’s carefully staring into the mirror: the barkeep darts a glance upstairs and back to his pal, then slaps his hand down to trap the coin. ‘No problem.’

Even after a few months Goodnight’s become attuned to the tiny gestures, the hesitations and exchanged glances; he can’t imagine what it’s been like for Billy to live this, always on the edge of rejection or hostility. Billy’s always so calm, stoical in the face of slight and ill-concealed contempt, but Goodnight’s learnt by now that his anger finds its outlet, in the pure white rage that flares when he fights, or the times when he turns inward, unwilling to share himself with even the gentlest companion.

When they’ve quenched their thirst Billy takes the key so he can move their gear upstairs, and Goodnight turns his attention to the other customers. It’s not crowded enough yet to start touting for a contest, but there’s other ways to play it. ‘That game open to strangers?’ he asks, nodding towards the card-players hunched around their table. 

‘Generally is,’ allows the barkeep, ‘’long as you’ve the wherewithal. Dealer’s MacClaren, and he’ll play with anyone has the stakes.’ 

‘My kind of man,’ declares Goodnight, tossing back his drink. ‘Let me introduce myself to these fine citizens.’ He raises his eyebrows at Billy who gives him an imperceptible nod and turns to put his back to the bar, surveying the room. 

The players look up at Goodnight’s approach: they’re all respectable types, a clerk in his shirtsleeves, a whiskery fellow in a faded red coat, and a burly man in a fancy waitcoat. ‘Would you gentlemen be agreeable to my joining you?’ 

The three of them look to the man at the head of the table who’s evidently MacClaren, dark and saturnine, and with a pearl-handled colt very obviously at his hip. MacClaren favours him with a suspicious stare. ‘Depends. Ain’t a game for penny-ante players.’ 

Goodnight sighs inwardly: he’s going to have to do it. Part of him shrinks even as he grins broadly and sweeps off his hat. ‘Let me introduce myself: Goodnight’s my name, Goodnight Robicheaux.’ 

It works, as it always does: the light of recognition and the handshakes, the offer of drinks and the dredging up of wartime reminiscences, true or invented, boasts all too ready to spill over. It’s a quick route to acceptance, and above all it’s a distraction, but as Goodnight picks up his hand he wishes to the bone that this wasn’t the only thing people value in him.

He examines his cards with half an ear to Red-Coat’s tale of his exploits in the Battle of Galveston, then tenses as a pair of arms come to rest on his shoulders. ‘Well hello there, Mr High Roller,’ coos a voice; he smells a sweet faded scent as the girl leans her head next to his, curls tickling his ear. ‘Want me to cut your cards for luck?’

‘Not right now, sweetheart,’ he says on a reflex, barely registering her; ‘Clear off, Tess,’ snaps MacClaren, ‘told you before to quit pestering.’ 

The girl pouts, plainly for his benefit. ‘If this one’s new in town he’s maybe looking for more entertainment than just gambling.’ She hitches up her skirt to make her meaning plain. 

‘Business before pleasure,’ says Goodnight with a wink to sugar the pill of his refusal. 

The clerk nudges the burly man beside him with a smirk. ‘Ain’t ever nothing but business, Adams sees to that.’ 

‘Ain’t never stopped you putting your dollar down,’ Tess tells him peevishly, then to Goodnight, with a shake of her curls, ‘Be here later when you’re ready.’ 

\-- 

Adams don’t like to see us walk away, every pimp’s the same, thinks that if a man tells you no four times, he ain’t got the money, it might just be there in his pocket the fifth. _Get him interested and his dick’ll pay_ , that’s what he always says. But I wasn’t surprised to get the brush-off from him, and ‘least he was polite: though his clothes weren’t fancy he had all the little touches that said money to me, the high boots and the bright buttons on his chest, and that shiny watchchain. 

Men of quality often don’t like to admit what they’re looking for, not straight away – Mary, down in Austin, she sees gentlemen with money, and she told me that they don’t like a girl all over them, sitting in their lap and rubbing up against them: they want to see you act modest and make out they’re persuading you with their looks and charm, ‘stead of with their pocketbook. I could see Louisa with her eye on him, but I didn’t think Louisa she’d have any better luck with him, not until he was liquored up a bit and loose, so I headed back to the bar to see how it stood with his friend. 

Didn’t seem like Adams to let a Chinaman get served, not as though we ever see foreigners here, ‘cept that Italian fellow passed through a few years back – oh, so handsome he was, and the way he wrapped his tongue round his words, any of us girls’d gone with him for a snap of his fingers, but he said he had a sweetheart back home. Still, no one was making trouble for this man, Amos behind the bar treating him just like anyone else; he had one foot up on the rail and was staring into his glass like there was a secret at the bottom of it. He would have stood out anyhow, being what he was, but no one would have kept from staring at the belt he was wearing, knives all round with fancy patterns on them and shiny as anything. Seemed a bit of a show to make of it: Amos has a knife and I’ve seen him cut a man’s throat with it, but he keeps it hidden in his boot.

I set myself beside him, signalled to Joe for some sarsaparilla, and said, sociable-like, ‘I’ve quite a thirst this evening.’ He didn’t take up on it, just smiled a very little, looking in the mirror on the wall behind. 

He didn’t look like a white man, but he was handsome, when I looked close, with his dark hair and mustache and eyes; you could see the trail dust on him, but under than his shirt was clean, his hair under his hat looked soft, not greasy, and his nails were trimmed neat as the bank clerk’s. He wasn’t big, not like a lot of the miners are, all tall and heavy and run to fat, he was almost like you’d call delicate, but the way he held himself you could tell he was all muscle and sinew. 

Can’t never be put off by shyness, so I asked him right out, ‘You and your friend there looking to stay in town a while?’ At that he turned round to see where I was looking, and we both watched the man in grey talking and laughing with the other players. 

‘Here for a day or two,’ he said, and he didn’t sound like a Chinaman either, tho’ it was plain he was just being civil. 

‘What’s your line of work?’ I asked, as if you didn’t have to look far to see it was violence of some kind. 

‘Fighting,’ he said, like he expected it to scare me off, but I just looked him in the eye and said, ‘You’ll find enough of that here if you go looking for it. But maybe there’s other things you could be doing besides fighting?’ 

‘Drinking,’ he said shortly, turning back to look in the mirror again, ‘in peace.’ 

‘Now that ain’t so friendly,’ said I, ‘don’t you want to keep me company while your friend’s cleaning out MacClaren?’ He smiled a little at that, so I signed to Amos to set up a refill for him, and asked, ‘They were calling him a big hero from the war, that so?’ Didn’t mean much to me, but it was the right question. 

‘He’s Goodnight Robicheaux: everyone’s heard of him,’ he said with a little frown, ‘he’s famous for his shooting.’ 

‘Seems like the both of you enjoy making a show of yourselves,’ I said; he turned quick to see what I meant at that and he didn’t seem pleased, but I nodded at all his shiny knives. ‘Could just carry a gun.’ 

He laughed then, a proper laugh, and looked at me straight like he was seeing me clear for the first time. ‘What’s your name?’ I asked. 

‘Billy Rocks,’ he said. 

‘Pleased to meet you, Billy,’ I said, raising my glass, ‘I’m Tess.’

‘Come and sit down with me a while?’ I asked. ‘No obligation, but my boss likes to see us keeping company with a customer.’ 

He hesitated a little, looking over at his friend again, but then he nodded and followed me to an empty table; I could see Netty and Jilly staring at me, sitting down with a Chinaman, but he was a sight better company than the louts they were with. 

‘Who’s the boss?’ he asked. ‘Your barkeep and his friend there seemed to be waiting on his orders.’ 

Well, that was right enough: ‘Adams,’ I told him, ‘that’s his name, owns this joint. He ain’t down here, he sits upstairs ‘less there’s trouble or he wants something, but he keeps his eye on business all the same.’ 

I made sure to give him my full attention. ‘So what’s your story, Billy? Mr War Hero does the gambling and you do the fighting?’ 

‘Something like that,’ he said, but he didn’t say more. I was surprised: most all the men I’ve ever met have wanted to talk about themselves, how successful they are, or how tough or how smart, and what they want for a girl to do is say, ‘Yes’ and ‘Well I never’ and look impressed. 

‘You fellas on your way somewhere?’ I couldn’t work them out: they seemed too rich to be just drifters. 

‘Back West,’ he said, ‘over the mountains.’ 

‘Well, if you and your pal get lucky, money in your pockets, you should take care on the trail out – word is there’s road agents who keep a watch for folks leaving town, let ‘em get a few miles out, then jump ‘em for their money.’ 

‘Be interested to see them try,’ he said: didn’t seem to worry him one bit. 

‘You going all the way to Frisco?’ I asked. ‘I’d love to see a big city like that. Or anywhere bigger than here.’ 

‘You could go,’ he said, all serious, and I laughed. 

‘What, get up on the stage and take a trip? Can’t see Adams standing for that.’ 

He frowned at that. ‘He doesn’t let make up your own mind?’ Seemed an odd thing to say, but at least I’d got him talking. 

‘Wouldn’t be much use to him if we up and left, would we? Saloon’s open if there’s a customer buying, and they like to find girls as well as games and liquor.’ I sat back and hitched up my skirt to make sure he was getting the idea, but he was looking down into his glass again like he was thinking. 

‘Don’t you even get to come and go when you want?’ 

He seemed awful interested, but talk’s talk and asking’s free. ‘Where is there for us to go? Ain’t like we’re going to church, and though most of the storekeeps think our money’s good as anyone else’s when we’ve got it, we ain’t exactly free-spending customers. So no, we stay where the boss can see us.’

He was so serious, didn’t seem to be letting the whiskey loosen him up, so I rested my elbows on the table to give him a look down my chemise, and teased him, ‘Frisco’s a long way to go with no female company, don’t you think?’ 

He smiled just a little as he said, ‘Present company’s fine,’ and I though he was halfway to putting his money down, but instead he asked, ‘You and your friends never thought of setting up in business for yourselves?’ 

Me a madam? I was so surprised by the question I said to him, ‘Who’d have the money for that? Ain’t no need: Paradise is OK. Netty over there –‘ and I pointed to her – ‘she makes sure we share things out fair, and Joe and Amos don’t let the customers knock us around. Not like down at Hennessey’s.’ 

He raised his eyebrows, so I told him, ‘Hennessey runs the cribs, out back of the lumber yard: you and your pal don’t need to be going there. It’s rough, and dirty – whores for those don’t have the money for us girls here.’ Just the thought of it, those little dark shacks, is always enough to make me turn cold. ‘Lizzie who was here, she had to go and work there when Adams turned her off. She was coughing all the time, and her teeth starting to come loose: Adams said she was no use to him, it was scaring the customers off. It was hard on her, but there wasn’t nothing we could do – Adams said it was just business, law of money.’ 

I knew I shouldn’t have said none of that, customers don’t want to hear it, but it was hard not to let my tongue run away with me when he was listening so calm and attentive. ‘All of us girls know there’s worse places to be than here.’ 

\--

‘I’ll need to pass on this hand,’ says Goodnight, pushing back his chair. 

MacClaren scowls. ‘Not thinking of quitting on us?’ Goodnight’s luck’s been good, or his companions’ attention poor, and he’s claimed a steady run of pots, but he’s sharp enough to realise that MacClaren has thrown in several likely hands, encouraging a less wary player to think himself better than he was: he’ll expect to recoup his losses and more as the liquor flows and the evening progresses. 

Goodnight holds up his hands placatingly. ‘A call to the outhouse: I’m not done yet.’ 

He takes his time out back, then once the game has re-engaged MacClaren’s attention, he slips back to the bar to find Billy. This is one of the many advantages of a partner he’d found; too often before when he was gambling the drink and the company would go to his head, and what he won while the evening was young he’d lose or drink away later on. Now he can quietly pass a handful of notes and coins to Billy, always clear-minded and precise no matter how much he’s drunk, and know that they’ll wake up in profit. To his surprise, though, Billy’s abandoned his station at the bar and is sitting at a table with one of the girls, apparently in lively conversation. 

At first he’s simply taken aback: this is the first time in the months they’ve spent together that he’s seen his new partner show any interest in female company. But it’s human nature, after all, and Billy’s a man; maybe he’s been holding back since they partnered up. On the heels of surprise follows a wave of self-reproach. They’ve always shared a room; they settled into that early without debate to save money and trouble both, but maybe Billy’s felt it to be more of a constraint than he liked to consider. 

Their partnership has been lucrative, and they’ve moved from wariness to something he’d like to call friendship: he enjoys Billy’s companionship and he hopes that’s reciprocated. If it raises feelings in him that he thought were long dead, if he’d like to offer more, much more, mesmerised from that first meeting by his fine-boned face, his dark eyes, the strength and lightning-fast reflexes he wears so lightly, well, Goodnight keeps that locked away inside. But he’s welcomed their growing intimacy, two against a hostile world, without thought, and now, it seems, here’s proof he was wrong.

The girl’s not exactly sitting in Billy’s lap: they’re just talking, a respectable distance apart, but even so he doesn’t feel he wants to interrupt. Looking at her, Goodnight thinks he recognises the girl who spoke to him earlier, and he wonders, why this one? She’s pretty, as far as he’s any judge, doll-like, her fair hair curled into ringlets; none of the girls here are overdressed, but though her clothes are plain – a red skirt and striped camisole, stockings and boots – there’s something neater about her than the others he can see in their rumpled blouses and torn lace. No jewellery, none of them has that, but she’s tied a dark velvet ribbon round her throat that emphasises her pale colouring.

She’s as good as Billy could find in a place like this, and she’s obviously working to please him, leaning closer with her eyes on his face. May be that’s all it is – a woman who’ll take him seriously. She says something that makes Billy laugh, his smile flashing bright, and Goodnight’s honest enough to admit that the tightening in his chest is jealousy; but that’s his problem, and his alone.

‘Your friend there seems to have taken a shine to Tessie.’ 

Goodnight wheels, alert to the mocking edge to the comment, and finds himself confronting a long-haired man propped idly against the bar. At first sight he’s smartly-dressed, exuding self-confidence, but a closer look reveals that his pin-striped suit is shiny in places, the seams fraying, and the collar greasy. He tips his head back and gives Goodnight a considering look. ‘Other pimps might take exception to a Chinaman making free with their women, but me – live and let live, that’s what I say, right, Amos?’ 

The burly barkeep grunts in response: from his manner his employer’s used to being agreed with. 

‘Wouldn’t exactly be making free, though, would he?’ observes Goodnight, ‘I’m sure your associates would see to that,’ and is rewarded by a splutter as the man chokes on his whiskey. 

‘Fair point,’ concedes the man, ‘and money’s what makes this nation of ours great, who’s to care whose hands it passes through.’ He sticks out a hand. ‘Silas Adams, proprietor. I understand I’m making the acquaintance of the famous Goodnight Robicheaux.’ 

‘Pleasure’s mine,’ says Goodnight as Adams attempts to crush his knuckles. 

Adams signals for drinks for both of them. ‘On the house.’ He raises his glass. ‘Don’t get so many of note passing through here.’ 

From the corner of his eye Goodnight can see MacClaren’s glare, but there’s little he can do if the boss is in the mood to talk. ‘Impressive place for a small town,’ he observes: it is striking, the décor and the games and the girls in what appears to be a glorified trading post. 

Adams taps the side of his nose. ‘Entertainment’s the business to be in.’ He looks around himself, to see that his underlings are paying attention: _here’s a man who enjoys the sound of his own voice_. ‘Honest day’s toil is good for the character, they say. But two things that never go out of fashion are drink and pussy, and the man who sells those won’t ever be short of custom.’ 

He relaxes against the bar as he elaborates. ‘When I started out here all I had was a shack with a tarp for a roof, and me to sweep the floor and pour the drinks and run the whores; but I was the only bar in town, and the miners, they came pushing and shoving to get in through the door. So I got a bigger joint, and I sold so much liquor that the company sent up the mirror for free.’ He nods at the fancy glass behind the bar. ‘And when more girls came along, I took them under my care and pretty soon I was the biggest owner in town.’ He strokes his moustache, preening: _big fish in a small pond_ , thinks Goodnight. 

‘Can a man enquire as to the nature of your business here? You and your – associate?’ Adam’s manner is still satirical, but Goodnight senses there’s not much between taking Billy’s money and throwing him out into the street. _Or trying to_. He smiles: he’ll do this a thousand times if it’ll lift a fraction of the burden Billy carries.

‘Entertainment’s our business too,’ he says, and sees Adams stiffen: not a man who likes competition. ‘We’ll stage a few contests, if there’s the interest: shooting, fighting. Always men who like to test their skills.’ 

Adams narrows his eyes, nodding thoughtfully. ‘Handy in a fight, is he?’ He puts up his fists in a boxer’s stance and feints a few punches. ‘My fighting days are long past, but Amos here might be able to give your pard a run for his money.’ 

Goodnight doubts it, in a fair fight: weight’s no advantage against Billy. But he gets the impression that a fair fight’s not what this Adams is interested in. Still, he shrugs. ‘He can try and welcome. We’ll set up tomorrow. Town this size, I expect there’ll be some takers.’ 

‘And that’s all your business here?’ Adams is looking at him keenly. ‘Clean out the sapheads and move on?’ _What’s he afraid of?_

‘Earn a little, spend a little,’ says Goodnight, ‘we don’t aim to settle.’ 

That seems to satisfy him. ‘Long as you do your spending here at the day’s end, we’ll have no argument.’ He puts his glass down and nods at Amos for another.

‘On me,’ says Goodnight. _Won’t do to be in this man’s debt_. 

\--

It’s a while before he can extricate himself from Adams’ company, and by the time he does Billy’s gone upstairs; Goodnight starts to head after him, but as he puts his foot on the first step the thought freezes him. Did he take the girl up there with him? He scans the room as unobtrusively as he can, and no, there she is, leaning on the shoulder of a fat man in a high collar. He knows he shouldn’t feel relieved, thumping up the stair and along to their room, but he does.

In their room Billy’s already stowed their gear neatly, razor and soap laid out next to the basin, Goodnight’s bag on the bed by the door; he’s claimed the bed nearer the wall for himself. He’s sitting cross-legged, attending to his knives, running the sharpening stone carefully down a blade; there’s a plate on the floor next to his feet, empty but for crumbs, and another on the chest with a hunk of bread and cheese. 

It’s an easy familiarity that does as much to ground Goodnight as the conversation and backup; too often in the past the oppressive silence of a grubby anonymous room has driven him downstairs again to drink until he no longer cared, but now he’s warmed by Billy’s wordless forethought. 

He hangs his coat on the bedpost and empties the pockets, piling the coins and notes on the bedcover. ‘Come out ahead?’ asks Billy. 

‘War stories helped,’ admits Goodnight. ‘Don’t think they were all for my quitting, but the boss here got talking to me at the bar so they couldn’t complain.’ 

‘That Adams?’ asks Billy over the regular stroke of the stone; he’ll need them sharp tomorrow, but Goodnight knows by now that he finds the nightly ritual soothing, honing and polishing, turning each blade in his hands then laying it down in a neat line: it brings calm to his face and eases the stiffness from his posture.

‘Likes the sound of his own voice.’ He pretends to ignore Billy’s glance of amusement. ‘Wanted to sound me out a bit, wondering why we’re here. Think he’s anxious about protecting his turf.’ 

‘King of a dunghill,’ says Billy dismissively. 

Goodnight stacks the money on the chest next to the basin and rolls up his sleeves to wash. ‘Seems to have it pretty much sewn up here, only saloon in town and a couple of heavies to keep it that way.’ 

‘Wonder if that’s his only business: girl I was talking to said there’ve been attacks on the road out: couple of times wealthy types passed through and found themselves looking down a gun a few days later.’ 

‘Worth knowing.’ Goodnight shucks his vest and boots and stretches out his legs on the bed, plate in hand: the noise of the saloon below is still loud, but he’s had enough of spinning tales and playing up to his reputation. _Drunk enough too_.

As he settles to eat Goodnight says carefully, ‘I saw you talking with her: if you want – I mean, up here, I can make myself scarce for a while.’ 

‘No need,’ says Billy shortly; he doesn’t look up from his polishing. 

‘No trouble for me to take off,’ insists Goodnight. It’s the first time Billy’s given any indication of an interest: if they’re to be a partnership, best get it all out into the open. ‘Or if you’d prefer we can get two rooms, money’s not tight just now.’ Perhaps he’s shy about it: it’s not as though the subject’s ever come up, and maybe that’s his own fault – he’d let himself assume that Billy found the same satisfaction in their company as he does. But he’s sensitive enough to see that if Billy’s race is enough to cause trouble in a bar then the question of women is bound to be a thorny one. So if this one’s willing, maybe in private, it’s not his business to stand in the way. ‘Man has his wants.’ 

Billy stands up and picks up his belt to slot the knives one by one into their sheaths. He’s not looking at Goodnight. ‘I don’t want.’ 

Goodnight swallows down the awkwardness: he’s determined not to let this spoil the friendship they’ve built. ‘Money’s there, no problem if you need a little extra to buy her something pretty.’ 

Billy turns to face him, face set and hard to read. ‘I don’t, OK?’ Goodnight can’t fathom why he’s being so hostile. ‘You don’t, do you? She was making up to you first and you didn’t take her up on it.’ 

‘Ain’t what I’m looking for,’ says Goodnight, and it’s a phrase he’s practised over the years. He puts down his plate. Plenty of reasons a man might avoid prostitutes: morality, fear of disease, faith to a partner lost … turning down an advance in a saloon isn’t cause for suspicion. ‘But no reason I should put my notions onto you.’ 

Billy sits down on the bed again facing him. ‘I don’t want to bring her up here. I wouldn’t do that to anyone, make them do it for money, or because their boss tells them to.’ His fierce expression forbids questioning. ‘We were just talking: it’s what she’s supposed to do. About what we do, a bit, and about how it is for them here.’ 

The girls? Goodnight can’t say he’s ever given it much thought – girls in a saloon are just part of the setting, young, old, some pretty and some not, all friendly and all available, all to be politely deflected and check your pockets afterward. 

‘No harm, then,’ he says, fetching out his notebook; Billy lights a cigarette and stretches out at full length with a satisfied sigh, and companionable silence fills the room, shouts and music coming faintly from below.

\--

Turned out a slow night: Mr War Hero and his friend Billy weren’t biting, took themselves off upstairs, and the miners ran out of cash soon after, started asking for free lays, so Adams had Amos and Joe throw them out. Couple of regulars came in, but once MacClaren and his friends were done Joe closed up and Nettie saw us all through to our room, all ‘cept Louisa: Adams wanted her upstairs so she could work another shift sucking his cock and listening to him talk. 

Even with four in here ‘stead of five it’s cramped enough: we’re glad of it in winter, warm bodies to curl up with, but in summer we’re pressed so close and it gets so hot that I feel sometimes I’ll just stifle. Nights like those I try to lay down next the wall where there’s a little knothole under the window; if you put one eye to it you can look out, down past the barns all dark to the hills beyond and the starry sky, and think about what it would be like to be out there where it’s all free and wild. 

Lizzie used to laugh if I said that, she’d say it would be as wild as I’d want and more, all wolves and savages; she’d spent three winters on a farm thirty miles from town, and it was so bare and empty it was enough to make you run mad. Best to be safe in here, she said, but I couldn’t help wishing sometimes that I could be a woman married in my own home. 

Was a time I thought I might still find a husband – there’s men want wives, don’t they, trappers and woodsmen and the like, and I’d have gone with one of them, even if I had to live in a shanty or a tent. But time went by and I saw that was dumb: men don’t marry girls like us. Quick lay and out the door, and if they come back most times they don’t remember your name. So it ain’t ever going to be that way for me, not marrying or having a baby, though that never did Ma no good, did it?

 _Like I said, in the beginning I thought it would be just for a short time, till Mama got well or Tom growed up; and I was proud to be keeping us all took care of; it was hard to make myself walk down those stairs every night but it meant I could put coins in Mama’s hand and make sure there was dinner for us all to eat and she could see Doctor Roberts and get medicine. But weeks went by and then months, and Mama never got well, she just got thinner and weaker and soon she couldn’t get out of bed. She had Mary there to look after her, and I did too when I could, and she said we were good girls, but she got so weak that she died, and Dr Roberts said there wasn’t anything anyone could have done different._

_Wasn’t long after that Tom ran off. Never said a word, just one morning his bed was empty and he was gone: had been some drifters passing through, tough guys with guns, and maybe they took him with them, or he went after them: I never heard nothing more from him, not since._

_So that left Mary and me, and leastways we had each other, and Mr Adams said she could stay at the Paradise ‘long as I was working, so I kept on with it, thinking that at least she wouldn’t have to have all the men at her. I made sure she was dressed like a little girl, with her hair in two braids, and I told her if Adams asked she was to say she was almost ten, ‘stead of almost eleven. The other girls would have fussed over her if I’d let them, dressed her up and made her think there was something good about what we do, but I got Martha to let her stay in the kitchen mostly, and I hoped maybe when she was grown a bit she could find better work, respectable work. That’s a joke, right enough – she earns more than I do now, at a fancier whorehouse than this. Ain’t seen her in six years, but we send letters when we can. Guess there was never going to be any other ending to it._

\--

Next afternoon Billy’s making his way along the sidewalk, a cut over his eye and his pockets heavy, heading back to the saloon; Copperhead so far has turned out more profitable than they hoped, plenty of men willing to step up and back their skills, Goody keeping the crowd calm and good-natured, showing off some fancy target work, then stepping aside to let Billy clean up in the ring. They’ve sharpened up their act some over the months, Billy learning to lose occasionally and Goody pantomiming annoyance, and it’s fun, working together to put one over on the crowd. He’d hoped Goody would come back with him, ready to fuss over his injury and retell the highlights of the fight as they counted over their winnings, but instead he’d pressed his hatful of bills into Billy’s hands, muttering, ‘Should get that seen to – I’ll catch you up.’

He knows by now not to press, not when Goody’s face is drawn tight and a muscle jumping in his cheek. It costs him, the act: showing off his shooting prowess, even on a target; watching Billy take on comers spitting insults at him; taking the bets and joking like he’s confidence personified. Billy’s never met a man so complex in his attitude towards death, dealing it with a razor-sharp aim, yet mired in guilt and fear. To call him a coward’s too easy: Goody’s no coward. He’ll stand up to a fight, pull a gun if he has to, take on odds many would walk away from. But it wrings him out, leaves him caught between sleeplessness and nightmare; when Goody sat at the campfire talking and talking, those first nights, Billy hadn’t known then that what he feared was his own past, the ghosts gathered just outside the fire’s light. 

In time past, from the little he’s said, Goody would soak himself in whisky to dull the memories or put himself on the wrong end of a fight, and even yet, sometimes, he just wants to hide like an injured animal. It’s simple enough, to do what Billy does: wait until he comes back, then put a plate in front of him and distract him while he eats, keep him company as he drinks and steer him upstairs when he’s beginning to slur, light the lamp and listen to him ramble until his eyes fall closed. He knows it helps, reads it in Goody’s face, in the times of genuine relaxation, lazy afternoons on the trail or Sunday mornings lounging in shirtsleeves, quoting poetry while the townsfolk are at their sermon. Those times his companion isn’t Goodnight Robicheaux, hero of Antietam, Confederate legend, but just Goody, spinning tall tales and laughing like a boy.

It’s brought them close, inevitably, closer than travelling companions or business partners: they’re friends, but there are times when it catches itself on the brink of something else. Goody would welcome it, he knows: he recognised how he looked at him the very first time they met. There’s little enough privacy, living the way they do: though Goodnight schools his reactions well, Billy can’t but be aware how his eyes rove over his bare chest and arms as he washes, how sometimes when he ties up his hair Goodnight glances hastily away. At first he’d thought it predatory, expected an advance sooner or later, when Goody was drunk and his inhibitions down. But he hasn’t, hasn’t tried to engineer an encounter or made a proposition: he carefully keeps his distance, friendly and easy and undemanding. 

And Billy? Billy’s tried to banish that part of him, not to want what can’t be had because it’s just too risky: there have been men, occasionally, who gave him that look, but experience has taught that all they want is to take, to degrade, too caught up in lust and self-loathing to see him as a man. And that’s why he holds back: he knows Goody wants him, but he doesn’t want to find out that’s all it is, the hand in his hair, the press and take, a stifled curse and a dismissal. What he has is good in a different way: respect, concern, a gentle touch on an injured arm, a smile warm enough to bathe in; a voice that pours over him like slow-flowing molasses. If this is what he can have, it’s enough.

 

As he reaches the door of the saloon he hears shouting: his knuckles throb and he’s tempted to turn around – another fight’s the last thing he needs. But this doesn’t sound like a brawl, just one voice hectoring; he shoves open the door to see a long-haired man snarling at the girl he’s holding by the arm as the rest of the room looks on. ‘…to pick and choose. Won’t take this one, don’t want that: ain’t a whore’s job to say a man no.’ 

His fingers are digging into the girl’s flesh, squeezing it white: as she struggles Billy recognises Tess from last night. ‘If you ain’t earning you’re no good to me, not any one of you dumb cunts, sitting yapping and eating your heads off.’ From his words and Goody’s description Billy realises this must be Adams, the boss. 

He shakes Tess, and the sight of her, mute and passive, starts a slow coil of rage in the pit of his stomach, that she won’t fight back, that this man can act like he owns her, that the rest of them are just standing and watching. ‘Go and give ‘em what they want, put a peg on your nose if you’re too good for it-’ He slaps her and she goes stumbling. 

‘I’ll take her.’’ Every face turns to look at him, but Billy’s used to being stared at. ‘She can come upstairs with me.’ He locks eyes with Adams in the spreading silence. ‘How much?’ 

A foxy look crosses Adams’ face and he bares his teeth in a grin. ‘Two dollars down and she’s all yours.’ 

Billy glances at Tess; she’s rubbing her cheek, red-faced and eyes downcast. He digs in his pocket. 

‘Money talks,’ says Adams, as he takes the coins, ‘and Celestials and white men alike understand its tongue. Go on,’ he says to Tess; one of the other girls says something in an undertone to the barkeep, who laughs, ugly and obsequious. 

For a moment Billy wonders if Tess will refuse, but she shakes herself and comes to take his arm. ‘Won’t do to keep a handsome guy waiting,’ she says, and if her manner’s false the way she clasps his arm tells its own story as he leads her up the stair, all eyes following them.

\--

He unlocked the door to the room and stepped back to let me in: then he closed it behind him and set to taking off his coat and his belt of knives. I sat myself down on one of the beds and asked, because he hadn’t locked the door, ‘What about your friend?’ 

‘He’s not here,’ he said; with his hat off I could see he had a fresh cut over one eye, and he made himself busy pouring out water and rolling up his sleeves to wash. 

‘So just you and me, then?’ I said. He was an odd fish, all stiff and polite, but I reckoned I knew what I was up there for; I’d never had a Chinaman, Sadie whispered that they were different somehow, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that a man’s a man, black or white, preacher or ploughboy. So I sat back on the bed and showed him my stockings so he knew I was willing, but once he’d dried off his face he didn’t start in on his clothes, just pulled up the chair and sat in it, all serious. 

There’s an art to knowing what a man wants, any whore’ll tell you that, and maybe any wife too. Most of ‘em are simple enough and you learn to read ‘em right off, play along and tease, act coy or show yourself off; it’s the way they look at you ‘much as what they say tells you if they want a whore who enjoys her job and ain’t ashamed, or a girl who could have been respectable forced into a life of sin. You play young and sad or hard and careless; they’re paying and you give ‘em what they want. But this one, I found it hard to tell just what he wanted me to be. 

He said, sudden-like, ‘Thought you said this wasn’t a bad place.’ 

I shrugged. ‘It ain’t.’ I saw him looking at the marks still red on my arm, so I put a hand on it and said, ‘No harm done.’ 

‘You just let him hit you?’

Well, what kind of a question was that? ‘He’s the boss. Arguing back just makes more trouble.’

‘What was he upset about?’ 

I could see he wasn’t going to give up on it, so I sat up straight again. ‘Two men just come in from the diggings, stinking like skunks; ain’t washed for a month by the smell of ‘em.’ I still couldn’t keep the look off my face, though I tried. ‘They were yelling about wanting pussy, and me and Sadie was telling them they had to wash. We would have got them into a bath, made a game of it, but Amos went tattling to Adams.’ He still looked so serious, so I said, ‘Reckon I got the best of the bargain, up here with you.’

He stood up at that, and I thought we’d begin, but ‘stead he put his back to me, looking out the window. ‘He doesn’t have the right to treat you like that.’

I thought then that maybe he was as simple as Jilly. ‘Ain’t about right, is it? What he says goes.’ He didn’t say nothing, so I guessed he needed me to spell it out for him. ‘He had a contract with Ma, before she died: he paid money down for her when she needed it, and she worked to pay it back, and then when she got sick I took her place for it.’ 

‘How much?’ he asked, and my heart began to pound: did he want to buy me out? Have me from Adams? And straight away I got scared, thinking of being took off by the both of ‘em, maybe to the railroads, where there’s nothing but Chinese and Irish and no women for a mile around. 

I was about to up and head for the door, when he said, gentle-like, ‘No, I don’t mean for buying it, just – how much?’ And I realised that if he did want to pay for me, he or the other one could be up in Adams’ office dickering over it already, not asking me. 

‘Forty dollars, he said, when Ma was working, and she had another ten of him when she was ill.’ 

‘So fifty,’ he said, and hearing it said like that made it sound impossible. 

‘Take me a long time on my back to work that off.’ 

‘How much do you make in a night?’ he asked, like he was talking about any kind of business, but that wasn’t something I could say, was it? 

‘Customers pay their money to Joe or Amos, not us. Only cash we see is if they slip us a little extra for being nice to them.’ _Or if they’re drunk and careless with their pocketbooks; there’s some will pass out once they’ve finished their business, and then who’s to see if you give their coat a quick check?_ But I didn’t say that, of course. ‘Adams keeps count of the money, in his box upstairs, and he says it’s little enough over when he has to pay for food and board and clothes when we need them.’

Made a change, not the way he treated me, being able to sit tailor-fashion on the bed and talk business like a man: guess it was an odd situation, but it didn’t feel like it when I was there. He kept his distance when we were talking, didn’t even look at me very much – most time he had his head turned away, looking off like he was seeing somewhere else – but he listened so carefully, and that’s a rare thing in a man too.

‘So no one gets free of here?’ He had a crease between his brows like he was trying to understand. ‘You said, the other girl, he sent her away when she wasn’t earning?’ 

‘Lizzie?’ Ain’t many would remember that. ‘That was ‘cause she was too old and no use to him. Rest of us, he’d bring us back and it wouldn’t be pretty. Beth-‘ 

I stopped, ain’t no one needs to hear that tale, but he said quiet-like, ‘Tell me.’ 

‘Bethany ran off, she’s the only one I heard of who did. That was when Ma was here. Where she went I don’t know, but she was just gone one day and never came back.’ He didn’t say anything, just lifted a brow. ‘Adams gave it out she’d been killed, preening about like it was him that did it. But I reckon she maybe found a man to take her with him, right away from here.’ It all swept over me then, prickling on my skin, as I looked at his face. ‘Why? You offering for me?’ 

‘Not that,’ he said, all serious-like, ‘but we could take you somewhere else, get you safe there.’ 

_Where do I have to go?_ was on the tip of my tongue, but then the idea came to me, that there was somewhere I could go, if I could only get there, and here was a man offering to take me. I looked at him under my eyelashes. ‘Would you do that for me?’

\--

 _That was the worst day of my life, when I came back from looking at dress trimmings with Lizzie and Adams took me up to his office and told me straight out that Mary was gone. Sent her away on the stage, he said, to where she could get taken care of proper; and he gave me a dollar of what he got for her. I stood there with the coin in my hand and I almost flung it back in his face, I wouldn’t have minded if he’d hit me and knocked me dead; but I didn’t, and I didn’t scream or cry because Ma was buried and Tom gone and now Mary sent away and it was just me on my own, so what was the use?_

_I knew that Netty must have been in on it as well as Adams, otherwise Mary wouldn’t just have gone and not told me. But I knew why she’d do it: she’s the oldest of us, we all pretend we don’t see that when it’s quiet she has Jilly to comb her hair and pull out any that are grey ‘fore they can show. I reckon that’s why she lays for Amos too – hopes he’d keep Adams from turning her off if it came to that. Won’t work, I don’t reckon: Adams ain’t loyal to anyone ‘cept himself and his bank box._

_I couldn’t tease it out of her, where Mary had been sent, but a few months later a letter came, and Mary said she was in Austin, in the city, and being cared for by a woman called Maggie. Way she told it, she was in a fine house with nice furniture, and the other girls so pretty and kind to her, and she was learning to be a young lady, how to dress and sit and talk: she told me about the dresses they had made for her, and though I was sorry that she should be put to whoring too, I was glad at least that she was in a better place than me. But I never could bear to spend the dollar he gave me, and in the end I put it in a letter and sent it back to her._

_That’s a long time ago now: I still think of her with her hair in braids and playing with her doll, but these days she’s finer than I am: she don’t even go by Mary no more, her madam said it was too much like the bible, man don’t want a girl that’s named like his wife, so she’s Lily now, and Lily plays it right for the high rollers. There’s one gentleman visits her regular, he bought her a proper dress, she said, blue silk with ruffles round the hem and a little hat to match, and high-heeled boots so she can lifts her skirts to show a flash of her ankles._

_She wrote, once or twice, that there’d be a place for me with her, if I could come, and I thought about it a lot, how it would be there, a parlour for sitting in and men coming in respectful, raising their hats and waiting to be asked before they touched you, and me in a dress like hers too, in green, with only gentlemen as customers, men who’d treat me right. But it never seemed more than a wish, her there in the city and me at the Paradise forever._

\--

Goodnight squares his shoulders and straightens his cravat as he crosses the street. The citizens of Copperhead have proved as enthusiastic as he hoped for the contests they’ve staged, eager to try their prowess as target-shooters or bare-knuckle fighters, and their friends ready to lay their money down. He’d held it together for the duration of the performance, collected their winnings and faced down the loser’s complaints as his companions helped him stagger to his feet; but the crack of a bullet and the thud as it hit its target, the press of the crowd and the blood on Billy’s face… He’d had to mutter an excuse both of them knew was a lie, and flee to the blessed darkness and solitude of the stable, where only the horses would see his shaking hands and stuttering breaths. He’d ended up smoking out back of the livery, squeezed in behind the barrels, sucking down the smoke until his head was buzzing and the sharp edge of dread and confusion was gone. 

He appreciates that Billy won’t ask if he’s feeling better, won’t expect him to talk about it: he’ll be waiting until Goodnight’s ready to appear, then push out a chair for him or slide over a glass, as though a partner who can’t face the world is a regular thing. Time to find him, to check on his cuts and count their takings; time for a proper dinner and a few more drinks, and a little planning for the next round. 

His hope of sliding through the saloon unnoticed proves vain: Adams is holding court at the bar again, and when he sees Goodnight he nods at him, overfamiliar. ‘Wouldn’t go disturbing your friend right now.’ There’s nothing out of the ordinary in his manner, but somehow ‘friend’ manages to sound mocking. ‘He took Tess upstairs with him,’ he elaborates. ‘Wouldn’t want to interrupt their congress.’

 _Damnation._ Goodnight’s aware of the need to keep the surprise from his face. After all he’d offered, pushed at it… 

‘Have a drink,’ offers Adams. _Triple damnation._ He doesn’t want to be stuck down here, and he’ll be boiled if he’s going to put up with this blowhard’s company again. 

‘I’ll take a shot,’ he says, temporising as he scans the room; then his eye falls with relief on the two women standing next to an unoccupied piano. 

‘Joe.’ Adams snaps his fingers and then turns back, following his gaze. ‘If Netty or Jilly are to your taste, I’ll give you half price,’ he offers, ‘your pard being such a good customer and all.’ 

Goodnight raises his eyebrows, trying to look as though he’s considering it; he can’t imagine taking one of these half-dressed girls off for a hasty transaction, all forced jollity and faked enthusiasm. ‘Offer still be open in half and hour or so?’ 

Adams spreads his hands, _be my guest_ , and Goodnight picks up his glass and strolls over to be greeted with two professional smiles. ‘May I?’ he asks, putting his hat on top of the lid. 

‘Be a treat to hear a song,’ says the older of the two; she’s stout and friendly-looking, and though she’s older than the others Goodnight can see her appeal. ‘Ain’t that right, Jilly?’ 

Jilly’s younger, with curly red hair and an engaging gap-toothed giggle; ‘Play _Camptown Races_ ,’ she urges enthusiastically, but Netty pats her arm. 

‘That’ll be for later, honey, when the place is busy: let’s have something prettier for now.’ 

Goodnight flexes his fingers over the yellowed keys and begins, almost unthinkingly, with _Aura Lee_ , the two of them leaning in attentively as he begins to sing. Hands spanning over the familiar notes, he can’t help but imagine what must be happening upstairs: a vision of white limbs and tumbling golden curls, of a muscular back, dark hair falling over strong shoulders and a face with that same intent look as when he sharpens his blades…

At the end Jilly claps and Netty asks eagerly, ‘Will you give us another? We can get Sadie to sing. Sadie!’ 

She beckons, and a tall fair-haired woman comes to join them: she’s half-dressed and smiling like the others, but thinner, hands clenching nervously in her skirt. Goodnight expects her to suggest a comic song, the kind of bawdy tune to get a crowd stamping along, but Netty asks her, ‘Will you sing _Come Back to Erin_?’ 

‘Do you know it?’ Sadie asks him, and Goodnight nods, giving her a few bars’ introduction as she takes her place beside his chair. She’s shaky at first, but when she finds her confidence her voice swells clear and true, doing full justice to the song’s lament, and when she comes to the close the whole room is hushed and attentive. He ends with a little flourish and she colours with pleasure. 

‘Give us _I Dreamed I Dwelt_ , Sadie,’ urges Netty, and though it seems an ambitious choice for a saloon girl Goodnight finds a key to suit her warm contralto and plays her in; Sadie sings the aria well and heartfelt, earning them both a ripple of applause at the end. 

He takes advantage of the break while the girls debate the next song to glance at the bar: Adams has gone, and Amos too – only skinny Joe is left, in desultory conversation with the clerk from MacClaren’s poker game. 

Goodnight accompanies Netty through a rather tuneless _Rosalie, Flower of the Prairie_ and plays another air of his own, then gets up to take his empty glass back to the bar. As Joe refills it, Goodnight remembers what he was supposed to ask: ‘We’ll be staying another day or two, if that’s agreeable.’ 

Joe slides his glass over, then holds out his hand. ‘‘Nother dollar.’ When Goodnight looks at him uncomprehending, he adds, ‘Cash in advance.’ 

‘Have to give it to you later.’ Goodnight jerks his head upwards. ‘Money’s upstairs, and my pard’s busy right now with one of your…employees.’ 

Joe shakes his head. ‘No credit. That’s the rule.’ Goodnight searches through his pockets hopefully, but comes up only with a handful of cents: their winnings are in Billy’s coat, no doubt hastily flung onto the chair, or the floor… 

‘Won’t be more than-‘ he begins, but Joe won’t be persuaded. ‘Nuh-uh. I know how it goes, you say, Later, and then soon’s I’ve gone out you tell Amos it’s paid, and then Adams bawls us both out…’ 

He’s polite, but he’s stubborn, and Goodnight grits his teeth. ‘Give me two minutes.’ He tips his hat to Netty and Sadie and clumps reluctantly upstairs. 

 

It’s odd to knock tentatively at the door to his own room; at first there’s no reply, then at a second knock he hears Billy’s irritated, ‘What?’ 

Goodnight clears his throat. ‘I know this ain’t the best time, but we need some cash.’ 

Bootheels thud, then Billy opens the door: he’s fully dressed but for his coat and he scowls at what he sees in Goodnight’s expression. Behind him Tess is sitting cross-legged on Goodnight’s bed, hands folded in her lap; neither of them shows any sign of the hasty rearrangement of clothes. 

Goodnight nods awkwardly to her, then says apologetically to Billy, ‘Need a dollar for the room – barkeep down there’s impatient for his money.’ 

‘That’ll be Joe,’ says Tess at once, ‘Adams put the fear of God in him after he let that travelling salesman dun him: spent four days eating and drinking and whoring, kept putting Joe off for the cash, then up and vanished in the night. Joe learnt his lesson after that.’ 

‘Well, he won’t take no from me,’ agrees Goodnight. 

Billy reaches into his coat, and passes over the money; Goodnight says, ‘I’ll leave you to-‘ but Tess is already sliding from the bed. 

‘Naw, I’ve been away long enough.’ She turns back to Billy. ‘Thanks for –‘ but Billy cuts her off with a shake of his head. 

She slips past Goodnight in the doorway: is it his imagination, or does she press up against him as she passes, her curls sweet-smelling under his nose? He watches as she clatters down the stairs, setting her skirt straight, then closes the door. ‘Sorry to interrupt.’ 

He is, genuinely, but Billy doesn’t seem upset. ‘You didn’t.’ 

‘You weren’t…’ Goodnight gestures at the bed. 

Billy meets him with a level gaze. ‘I told you, I wouldn’t. You don’t, do you?’ 

There’s a challenge in his eyes that Goodnight’s not ready to meet, and he turns away to hide his flush. ‘So what was she doing up here?’ Surely there’s no other reason to pay and bring a girl upstairs. 

Billy starts to dig the rest of the money out of his pockets, avoiding Goodnight’s gaze. ‘When I came back Adams was yelling at her, hitting her. I just – to get her out of there.’ 

Simple gallantry? In the time they’ve spent together Billy’s shown little interest in anyone else’s affairs: Goodnight’s not convinced. Maybe they weren’t rutting, but Billy doesn’t have to tell him about his personal proclivities, does he? It’s not as if he’s looking to share his own. A faint scent of lavender hangs in the air like the ghost of her presence. ‘If you want your own room…’ 

Billy turns, quick and angry, a cold hostility in his face that Goodnight hasn’t seen these last few months. ‘You need me to spell it out? Chasing white women is the quick road to trouble for someone like me.’ 

‘Adams is more interested in your money than your race.’ 

‘He said that. But you could see.’ Billy’s whitening knuckles are the only outward sign of his anger. ‘He thought it was a punishment for her, to go with me.’ 

Goodnight’s stomach falls and he closes his eyes for a moment: it would demean both of them for him to pretend it’s not true. He clears his throat. ‘You want to leave?’ 

Billy shrugs. ‘Be a waste if there’s more money to be made.’ It’s true, but there’s something more, something Goodnight finds hard to read. ‘Heard you playing the piano down there.’ 

It’s an end to the topic and also a delicate enquiry: Goodnight sits down on the bed and forces himself to relax. ‘One of the girls was singing, she had a good voice.’ He tilts his head to scrutinise Billy’s face. ‘You seen to that cut proper?’ 

‘Fuss,’ says Billy dismissively, but he allows Goodnight to check the drying cut with careful fingers and use the cloth to loosen a few clinging strands of hair. 

When Goodnight’s done he hands Billy his hat. ‘C’mon. Don’t want to keep Joe fretting, and now we’re flush again we might as well see some benefit from it. I’m ready to eat.’ 

\--

The pair of them come back down after a while and called for food; Sadie went to the kitchen to fetch it for them, but I reckoned if Billy and I had an understanding now, I shouldn’t let any of the others start horning in on him; so I went over to where they were and asked, ‘You got a smoke?’ 

Billy went to his pocket, but the other one said, ‘Allow me,’ and took out a fancy case with initials stamped on it and passed a cigarette to me.

I hadn’t spoke to Mr War Hero Goodnight since that first night, and now it turned out he wasn’t anyway as easy as his friend. He was as charming as could be, and handsome, no doubt of that, all lean and brown with little bright pins shaped like flowers on the lapels of his vest. But I could tell he was suspicious right off, thinking why I was trying to make up to Billy; well, that’s our job, ain’t it, and no one’s ever pushing a man down on top of us. 

I guess I can understand he was wondering, because some girls wouldn’t be willing to go with a Chinaman, even a fine-looking one like his pard: maybe he thought it was Adams’ plan to get Billy where Amos and Joe could jump him. But as well as looking out for Billy this Goodnight was one of those thought he was better than most, you could tell that, the way he dressed and how he talked, all those ten-dollar words so you couldn’t follow what he meant half the time, and though he smiled a lot it didn’t seem to mean very much. 

Billy wasn’t saying nothing, just digging into his plate, but his pard was singing his praises, how no one could fight like him, and telling about times he’d laid men three times his size in the dust. Ain’t nothing interesting in that, ask me – can see a brawl in here any night of the week, and we’re the ones have to duck out of the way not to be hurt. But we both made out we were impressed, me and Sadie – you don’t never lose by letting a man talk. 

When he turned his attention to us, it was Sadie he seemed to like more than me, though she’s older and as skinny as a board: ‘You’ve a fine voice for singing,’ he told her, and she flushed up straight away. 

‘It’s a pleasure to sing the old songs: most times folk want a tune to make them laugh, something they can call along to.’ Well, that’s true: I’d heard them from upstairs, but men don’t come to the saloon to hear a girl singing sad songs about love and a baby in the cradle. 

‘I can see that Copperhead is hardly an oasis of cultural refinement,’ he said, ‘though it’s a shame your talent isn’t appreciated.’ 

You could tell Sadie was pleased: ‘Willem used to like-‘ she said, then cut herself off quick. 

‘Willem?’ asked Billy, like he’d been listening all along, and Sadie coloured up again because she knew she’d been caught out. 

She took a glance around to see no one was by, then said low, ‘Willem was my husband, before.’ 

Mr War Hero had stopped, fork halfway to his mouth. ‘You were married?’ He looked so shocked; it’s funny in a way, to see a man gaping like a codfish when he finds none of us girls came knocking on Adams’ door to ask, _Please let me stay here and lay for any man puts his money down_. 

Sadie was winding her hands in her skirt. ‘He took sick and died when the children were still small.’ 

‘But – didn’t you have family to help you?’ I looked at Billy just from the corner of my eye, but he was watching his friend close, not either of us. 

‘None of mine, and Willem’s folks were back in Minnesota.’ 

‘And wasn’t none of the storekeeps wanted a maid bringing little children with her,’ said I. ‘Paradise was the only place would put a roof over her head.’ I couldn’t stand to see him look so judging, and I snuck another glance at Billy but he wasn’t giving nothing away. ‘Choosing’s what rich people get to do, ain’t it?’

‘Ain’t so bad,’ said Sadie; you could see she wanted to put the best face on it for him. ‘My son’s a grown lad now, working for Mr Leyton on his farm; he’ll earn a place of his own one day. And Ella, she’s a good girl: when she’s older I hope she might prentice to a dressmaker, somewhere they don’t know about her ma, and find a steady young man as a beau.’ 

Well, that’s a tale we’ve all heard a hundred times: I didn’t mean to get snippy, but I don’t know why she thinks Ella’s so special. ‘That’s what my ma used to tell me and Mary, something better’s coming. Didn’t get us so far when Adams came calling, and it won’t do Ella no good either.’ 

Sadie set her mouth, she don’t never want to hear it. ‘There’s more than one story told, Tess, and I have trust in Providence.’ 

‘Providence won’t help when John shows a clean pair of heels like Tom did.’ 

‘Surely-’ Mr War Hero started, but I snatched up his drink and swallowed it down: I was too mad to care. Sadie put her hand on mine on the glass. ‘Paradise is the best we’re going to get.’

‘Damn straight,’ said Adams’s voice from behind me: I hadn’t heard him come up. ‘She’s learnt her lesson right: I’m the best you’re going to get. How long d’you think you’d last out there on your own? Bunch of prospectors would take you off to their camp, and you wouldn’t be coming out of that one alive. Or end up out behind Hennessey’s in a broken-down shack, laying for the customers we turn away on a lousy blanket.’ 

He turned to Billy and Mr War Hero. ‘Not that I want to offend your sensibilities. All our whores are of the finest standard; doc to see to ‘em once a month, Amos and Joe to make sure the customers don’t treat ‘em rough, and three meals a day.’ 

‘A true philanthropist,’ said Mr War Hero, and Adams showed his teeth in that grin of his that isn’t. 

‘Now hop to it,’ he told me and Sadie. ‘If these gentlemen ain’t buying your company, go earn me some cash.’ 

‘Yes, boss,’ I said: I wasn’t going to argue, I’d had enough hurt for one day. ‘Least he wouldn’t be letting Louisa hang round them either if they wasn’t paying.

\--

Goodnight puts down his fork, appetite gone, and pushes his plate across to Billy who accepts it without comment. As Billy eats Goodnight looks around the room: Adams has taken up his accustomed station at the bar, looking on approvingly as the girls make up to his customers, sad skinny Sadie, fair pretty Tess, the sullen dark one and the giggly redhead, all smiling and teasing and flattering. When he finally looks back to Billy he finds his eyes on his face, his expression impossible to read. 

‘Come on.’ Billy picks up his hat and stands up, impatient. 

‘Where are we going?’ 

‘Somewhere that isn’t here,’ says Billy, and Goodnight follows him gratefully to the door. 

They fall into step along the sidewalk and Billy takes them along the main street in the gathering dusk, out past the ring where they were shooting just a few hours before, and a little further again, where the town peters out into a jumble of storage sheds and rickety cabins; a man passes them on a slow-moving cart of stones, swaying back up to town. 

Adams’ words are still ringing in Goodnight’s ears: he likes to think of himself as a man of experience, worldly-wise, but this sudden glimpse of the women’s histories has brought him up short. Truth to tell, he’d never given the girls in saloons much consideration. Having no use for their professional skills he’d rarely done more than exchange some suggestive conversation; they’d seemed…interchangeable, the same wherever you went, some old, some young, some prettier than others, but always, ‘I’m Carrie, what’s your name?’ or ‘I’m Sally, you new in town?’ or ‘I’m Janie, buy me a drink?’ 

It never seemed much of a life, but he’d just assumed – well, that it was their choice, or as much of a choice as anyone gets. But to be forced into whoredom; to be left destitute and find all doors closed to you but one; to be taken because you were weak and unprotected, and then told that’s all you’re good for… It’s a window into a life he’s never considered. 

Billy stops them at the edge of town and lights up, leaning on the rail of an empty stock pen. Goodnight smiles ruefully. ‘I feel like a preacher’s wife, having my morals outraged, but they are.’ 

Billy blows out smoke and passes the cigarette to Goodnight. It’s a reflex – this is tobacco, not opium, but sharing’s become a habit and Goodnight takes a tiny pleasure in the intimacy of the gesture, the brush of fingers and Billy’s unthinking expectation that he has a partner at his side. 

‘And that Adams, acting like he’s doing them a favour… If they have to work, you’d think they could find somewhere better…’ 

‘Not that simple.’ Billy’s tone is distant, businesslike. ‘Adams has them on a contract. That’s what Tess said.’ 

Goodnight looks at him, surprised. ‘You were talking to her about money?’ 

The corners of Billy’s mouth tighten. ‘I said. None of them can go without Adams’ say-so: Tess would, but she’d have to pay the money off.’ He’s gazing off at the horizon, still faintly lit from the setting sun. ‘Or someone would.’ 

The implication hits Goodnight like a drench of cold water: so that’s why they weren’t just rutting, he’s taken with her, from that first evening. ‘You want to get her away from him. Take her with you.’ 

It’s a blow to his hopes, their partnership over so soon. He hungers for Billy, he won’t deny it, but he’d be content to hold that unspoken forever, just to have his company, his anchoring silences and hard-won laughs, his slowly blossoming trust: he’d hoped that he might have found a true friend. He realises the silence is lengthening and he makes an effort to pull himself together. If that’s what he claims to be, Billy’s friend, isn’t it clear what he must do?

‘Can understand she’d be willing, but have you thought what the pair of you would do?’ Could they marry? He doesn’t think so, but it’s hardly his affair. 

Billy gives a _tsk_ of impatience. ‘Not with me like that. Don’t think we’d get so far, a white woman and an Asian. I said we could take her with us, to Austin.’ 

The relief, that Billy’s not proposing the end of their arrangement, is so intense that Goodnight has to close his eyes, dragging deep on the cigarette to gain time to steady himself. ‘Why Austin?’ 

‘Her sister’s there, and she wants to be with her.’ 

Goodnight passes the cigarette back again. ‘Well, we can do that, take her to her family. But – you want to buy out her contract? How much are we talking about?’

Billy shakes his head. ‘It’s not really about how much. Adams says her mother owed him fifty dollars, and she owes him too, but she doesn’t know how much she earns or how much of it is paid off. There’s probably not even a real contract: he’ll keep her working long as he wants, or maybe when she’s old, he’ll say it’s done if he wants rid of her.’ 

‘But that’s …’ Goodnight’s horrified all over again at the idea that this is going on all around him. _Hi, I’m Tess, and I’m a slave to the man who runs this bar_. 

Billy looks at him straight on, his gaze unforgiving. ‘It’s how the world works. Guess your family was always on the other side of the desk.’ 

Anger surges in him at the accusation, but Billy’s eyes seem to see inside him to uncomfortable memories from his childhood, and it ebbs again to leave a familiar sense of shame. ‘Well, we were. Don’t mean I have to go along with it now.’ 

‘So you’ll help?’ asks Billy. 

‘Of course,’ says Goodnight, ‘I assume you have a plan?’ 

Billy sets his back to the rail. ‘If she can get out without being seen, buy herself an hour or two’s start, we pick her up and ride to Austin. Stay off the road, keep out of sight, make sure she gets where she wants to be.’ He holds up a hand before Goodnight can speak. ‘Might be Adams would send his men after us. Tess said he killed the last girl who tried to run off, though she doesn’t really know that.’ 

Goodnight tips his head back thoughtfully. ‘Sounds like bluster to keep them scared. If he did, I doubt he did it himself – seems the kind to leave the dirty work to his heavies.’ He pauses. ‘But yes, I think he’d come after her. For the money, and because’ – he doesn’t want to say it, but there’s no point dissembling – ‘particularly because it’s you.’ 

Billy grimaces, just a moment before it’s smoothed away. ‘She won’t be paying us,’ he warns, ‘nor her sister. Have to be sure you think it’s worth it.’ 

‘I do,’ says Goodnight, and it seems simple enough, a week or two as escort and protection on the road; this matters to Billy, he can see, even if his motives are obscure. 

It’s not that he can’t understand some of it himself: since he left the army he’s always taken comfort that however bad things may be, he can just get on a horse or his own two feet and take off, and no one to keep him where he won’t stay. Tess is free, she’s not Adams’ wife or daughter, but he can see how it works: who’s going to stand up to help her if his man drags her off by the arm? He can just imagine it, Adams with a faked-up ‘contract’ that she probably can’t even read, and if there were a magistrate or a justice for her to appeal to, who’d listen to a whore? 

‘Maybe I can set a little on the other side of my scale,’ he says, and is rewarded by Billy’s quiet laugh, his shoulders relaxing almost imperceptibly. 

‘We should stay a day or two more.’ 

‘Be worth it to make good on our show,’ agrees Goodnight. ‘let the fine citizens of Copperhead have their entertainment.’ 

Billy flicks the stub of his cigarette away into the dust. ‘I’ll fix things up with her.’ 

_Why this one, though?_ Goodnight wonders as they stroll back along the sidewalk. Tess is pretty enough – hard, though who wouldn’t be – but she’s not the only girl living a life she doesn’t want. Why not Sadie with her hopes for her children, or good-natured defenceless Jilly? There must be hundreds of girls, thousands even, in town after town, plying their trade with a fake smile and a world-weary resignation. 

_Because she’s the one spoke to Billy. Because she’s asking us. Because you can’t help them all, but maybe we can help one, take her to where she can find some protection and the comfort of family. Surely it’s the right thing to do, to help?_

\--

I knew I had to do like Billy said, just keep on same as always so no one would suspect, but Lord, it was hard: I felt prickly all over, and everything I said seemed stiff and unnatural, like people would see straight through me to what I was thinking. All day if I was joking with Joe and Amos, or mending with Sadie and Jilly and saying what we’d buy if we had the money, or flirting and laying for those that put their money down, I couldn’t keep from my mind what Billy and his friend were doing – were they upstairs, were they in the bar, had they gone out? I’d flush up so when I saw them, guilty-like, that I just couldn’t hide it: was just as well Billy paid out for me once more so we could have the chance to set a plan, and I could let the others tease me for thinking he was handsome.

Everyone was talking about their show, quick-draw and targets and fighting, and they were cheerful enough about it too; but Adams didn’t like it, I could see that easy enough – if there’s money coming into Copperhead he wants it to be crossing his bar, and the idea that men were going down to the corrals and betting and having a time of it didn’t please him one bit. He sent Amos down there once, to look if he could win a bout and bring some of the cash back, but Amos came back shaking his head: said he’d be a fool to go up one to one with Billy Rocks before he had to. Adams wasn’t best pleased, but Amos said to Joe after, ain’t like he was the one going to be rolling up his sleeves, was it? But the two of ‘em spent enough in the bar that Adams couldn’t say nothing, and they were always civil. 

Louisa kept hanging around Mr War Hero Goodnight, and Netty too, to see if he wanted laying, but he didn’t seem to any more than his pard; after he found out about Sadie he began to treat us all very proper, even asked us our right names so he could call us ‘Miss’. First time he asked me it brought me up short – I ain’t been nothing but Tess since the day I set foot in here.

‘Lawlor,’ I told him, ‘Theresa Lawlor’; ‘Miss Lawlor,’ he said with a little bow of his head, and part of me felt he was making fun, treating me like a regular lady though I was just a whore, and part of me thought he meant it and was sad. 

‘Course Louisa made fun of me for it, ‘Miss Lawlor, laying for a Chinaman’ – she wasn’t going to let that one go in a hurry. 

‘You’d do it soon enough if Adams told you,’ I said to her: I wished she’d be able to see me when I was smart and fashionable in a silk dress and matching hat, walking out in the city with my sister to look in the stores and buy what we wanted, and her still drinking with grubby miners in her underwear: she’d be sorry for laughing at me then.

_Louisa turned up in Copperhead on the stage and all, passing through with a man was looking after her, and she didn’t look like any of us then, on her man’s arm in a fine dress with gloves to match; but he had some conversation with Adams, then upped and left – got tired of her ways, I expect. She wasn’t new to whoring – came over on the boat from England and if she was respectable when she set foot aboard she wasn’t when she came off again. But the Paradise wasn’t where she was expecting to end, that’s for sure. Proper dress didn’t last long – she saw if she wore it here it would soon be torn and whiskey spilled on it, or worse, so she put it away, and her gloves too: I reckon at first she thought if she kept them long enough she’d find another man to wear them for, but that ain’t the way of it here._

_New whore’s always an attraction; there was a whole slew of men wanting to try out with her, and Adams the first of them. He’d took me up to keep his bed warm ‘fore that – not when I was young, he had Jilly up there mostly when I first started – but once I was grown up a bit he started taking me instead. Meant I was laying for him extra and working just the same, but I learned things from hearing him talk and being by, and he’d have me fetch for him: if I told one of the others, Adams wants this, they’d do it quick enough. But when Miss Louisa come, it was straight back down to the whores’ room for me, and her up there every night sucking his cock and listening while he boasted._

_She ain’t no prettier than me, and she’s always sulky-looking, though some men like that; Adams must like it right enough, for I thought the shine would wear off with her after a while, but he kept keen on her: maybe she knows some tricks we don’t, or maybe she pretends better than I did that she likes it._

\--

Feeling sympathy for white women? Billy can’t find the words to explain it to Goodnight; he struggles to understand it himself. For the longest time he’s kept his emotions to himself, made impassivity and stoicism his bedrock: compassion has been a luxury he couldn’t afford to spare, a weak spot in the armour which lets him survive in a hostile world. Before, even if he’d heard the women’s tales and felt for them, he would still have ridden away after and soon forgotten it; now he lets Tess’s story, and the others’, kindle the anger he keeps buried. What’s changed? 

The answer’s sharing his table, watching his back in the ring, spinning him tales as they ride, the only man he’s met whose outside seems to match his core. Goody works on him – the warmth of that sunny smile, his cascade of chatter, his companionship and concern, softening his hard shell and pulling him back into the world, and Tess the unlikely beneficiary. 

Her spark of will, her determination to shape her own fate, can’t but call to something in him. A man could do what he did, take his fate in his own two hands and fight for what he wanted: a gun, a horse, some money in his pocket, status and recognition. But Tess and her kind, trapped in a town like this where respectable men and women claim the privilege of looking down on you, no prospect of changing your status, only a life of labour for someone else’s profit, and when you’re too old to be useful, destitution… The other women’s passivity puzzles and frustrates him: why does the flame of rebellion not rise in them too? It’s a simple enough thing, to put her on the back of a horse and take her to where she wants to be: is his generosity, and Goodnight’s, so rare?

Sympathy’s a luxury: if he needed a lesson, it comes all too soon. He and Goody are whiling away an early evening at a table in the corner of the saloon: the Paradise is busy with drinkers and gamblers, but Goody’s relaxed enough to drink without his usual shaky urgency and they’re drawing out a rambling argument over the merits of heading north or west against the jangle of the piano and the hum of conversation. When a chair scrapes and a man shouts it’s no more than background noise, but the crash that follows draws everyone’s attention: Jilly’s standing looking horror-stricken at the mess of broken bottle and glasses that have slipped from her hands. 

A weaselly man in a shabby frock coat leaps up from the chair that he’s just shoved into her path. ‘You dumb cunt,’ he snarls, ‘look what you done to my coat,’ and he lashes out, a careless backhand blow that sends her sprawling. 

Billy’s on his feet before he knows it. ‘Wait-‘ says Goody in an undertone, catching his wrist, but Billy shakes him off and strides over. 

Jilly cringes away at his approach, her gaze darting fearfully from him to the man who hit her; ‘I’m sorry,’ she whimpers, and the sight of her, so abject, winds something tight inside him. 

He plants himself in front of the man who’s dabbing at the stain on his threadbare lapel. Wasn’t her fault. You tripped her.’ 

‘Cunt should have looked where she’s going,’ shrugs the man; he’s a nobody, but to Billy in this moment he’s every self-satisfied overseer, every contemptuous stranger he’s ever encountered. 

‘You shouldn’t have hit her.’ 

The man looks him up and down with evident disdain. ‘What’s it matter? She’s just a whore.’ 

His contemptuous dismissal, Jilly no more to him than the other furniture in the saloon, is a spark to a fuse. ‘Does it make you feel big, knocking someone defenceless around? Ever take on someone who can fight back?’ 

Conversation around them falters to silence, and a boot crunches on broken glass: Billy doesn’t have to turn round to know that Adams has come up behind him. ‘Quit snivelling and clean it up,’ he orders Jilly. 

The weaselly man can’t hold Billy’s gaze: his eyes slide away over his shoulder as he appeals to Adams, ‘You let Celestials in here so they can boss white men about?’ 

From the corner of his eye Billy sees Goody pushing back his chair; it’s a struggle to keep his voice level. ‘Let’s see how much of a man you are.’ 

Adams steps between them. ‘Now I’m a forward thinker,’ he announces, ‘I’ve had you sleep in my joint and eat at my table and screw my whores, all one to me ‘long as you’re paying.’ His look at Billy is calculating. ‘But Emerson here’s got the right of it – can’t have a Celestial acting like he’s a man’s better.’ 

Billy glances swiftly at the blank faces around him; it’s hardly the first time a barful of men’s turned against him, but this time he has Goody at his shoulder, coat folded back, looking at Emerson with hooded eyes. ‘Be a poor ambition to aim to be better than this turkeyneck,’ Billy goads him. 

As expected, Emerson scowls, but he takes a step back. ‘I ain’t going to fight you both.’ 

Adams holds up his hands. ‘It’s my joint, and I say it ain’t coming to that.’ He addresses Goody this time. ‘I think you’ve worn out your welcome here, him and you both.’ 

Though he’s choked with rage, Billy knows this isn’t just about the colour of his skin: if the Paradise won’t board them their stay in Copperhead is over. 

‘Such as it was,’ says Goody, and Billy’s grateful for that. ‘You can keep the half-dollar we paid for tonight: put it towards a new suit.’

\--

Didn’t take them long to fetch their gear and leave, and wasn’t no chance for me to speak to Billy – he didn’t even look my way, just went off hard-faced with his pard.

Adams was by the bar again to watch them go. ‘Never was happy with a Celestial in the joint,’ he said, as though he’d said it that way all the time, and Joe said straightaway, ‘Me neither’ – he’d say black was white if Adams told him to. 

‘Think their saddlebags will slow ‘em down any?’ asked Amos, sly-like. ‘Made a fair profit off fleecing the miners.’ 

‘Might be someone will help them with that,’ said Adams, putting a finger to the side of his nose, and I was glad all over again I’d said what I did to Billy. 

Just then there was the clatter of hooves in the street, and I slipped out front as they went past; was more than I could bear to see, the two of them trotting past, grim and serious, putting Copperhead behind and me with it, while I stood there like a dumb beast. I felt as bad as I did after Mary was gone, seeing them small at the end of the street where the world started and my chance slipped though my fingers. 

They dwindled away into the evening and then they were gone, and I screwed up my eyes hard, just for a minute before I went back in; then of a sudden I felt a little tug at my skirt. 

‘Miss?’ It was the boy from the livery, blushing scarlet to be talking to a woman like me, but, ‘Miss,’ he said, all determined, ‘those gentlemen said to give you this,’ and he pressed a folded paper into my hand. 

I slipped it in my pocket and pinched his cheek, ‘Ain’t got nothing to give you for it,’ I said, but he shook his head and blushed again and ran away. 

I didn’t dare look at it, just went back in ‘fore I could be missed, but when Adams saw me all he said was, ‘Get after Jilly, I want her working, not slinking about out back.’ 

‘She’s hurt,’ I said, but he wasn’t having none of it. 

‘Shouldn’t have made a customer mad. Tell her if she ain’t out here soon I’ll keep her half price till the mark goes down.’ 

Always us that’s to blame, ain’t it, never mind what a man does, but Adams would do it too, have all the cheapskates in town waiting in line for her, so I went off to find her. 

Jilly was in our room, curled up on the bed, and when I sat down next to her she said the same, ‘Shouldn’t have made him mad.’ 

Her eyes were red and a bruise was coming up on her cheek; but all I said was, ‘Hush now,’ and put her head in my lap so I could stroke her hair for a little while. Once she was calm I helped her fix her face and told her stories to see if I could make her smile, then we went back out together, and all the time the paper was like to burn a hole in my pocket, with its neat square writing that said, _Three days_. 

\--

I couldn’t take much with me if I was to keep it a secret, not much more than what I stood up in, but when I was alone I fetched out my one good dress, the pink one, and put Ma’s brooch that I kept of her and my bottle of lavender water and good stockings together in the middle, and rolled it up tight in my spare chemise. I guessed maybe Sadie could take my clothes as was left, if she wanted, or they could give them to the next girl – I’d have more at the end of it, wouldn’t I? I put the bundle away under my bed, and that night I lay down with Netty and Jilly and Sadie all around and pretended to sleep, and all the time it seemed it was someone else doing it, not me, like none of it was real. 

Took all I could do to lay still so the others would settle, and time dragged by so with them shifting about and sighing, I thought day would break again before I could go, but in the end they all went fast asleep; I waited a little, then got up, picked up my boots and the bundle from under the bed and crept out, quiet as a shadow, along the corridor to the kitchen. I was glad it was Joe sleeping down in the bar – why Adams thinks that would help if thieves came I don’t know, for Joe wouldn’t wake up if it was the crack of doom.

I took a minute listening at the door of the kitchen before I pushed it open, but soon as I did I spied a dark shape at the table and I thought I was caught. But the shape didn’t move, and in a little while I saw that it was just Adams’ coat hung on the back of the chair. I was going to creep past, but seeing it there gave me an idea, so I put my hand on the pocket and sure enough I felt coins in there. I had a few quarters sewn into the hem of my good dress, but nothing near enough to live on, so I reached in my hand quick as a mouse and pulled out three silver dollars from the pocket. I felt bad for a minute about taking it, because it was stealing and that’s a sin, but then I thought of all that Adams had earned from me working on my back, all those men putting dollars in his hand, and I reached in again and took three more.

Going out of the door was the worst: I felt like any minute Joe would wake up and shout or Amos would come out of the shadows and take me by the wrist, and I wouldn’t be able to hide what I was doing: and when I shut the door soft behind me and stopped to put on my boots, my heart was thumping like I’d suffocate. But I hugged my bundle tight and slipped away behind the stores: old Winters has a dog that barks, so I kept wide of there, and I felt like a dog myself, slinking away in the dark. 

I worried then that Netty would be in trouble when they found I was gone, that Adams would blame her for not keeping better sight of me, and he’d send her off like he did Lizzie. But then I thought no, if he’s only four girls ‘stead of five he won’t be sending the rest off too, will he – he’ll be looking for a new girl to take my place. And if that was Sadie’s Ella, well, it was good enough for me when I was her age, wasn’t it, so why should she be any different?

Along the street to the end of town was easy enough, but once I crossed the creek there was no more path and no lights, and the ground all rough and stony – took me a long time to find a way up the hill, and at every step I sent little stones skittering down, and that and my breathing coming harsh seemed so loud that I thought everyone in the town must hear me. When I got to the rise of the hill I stopped to look and listen ahead, but I didn’t see a fire or hear anything. ‘Course they wouldn’t be sitting so close by, I told myself, but the idea began to nag at me that I was stumbling alone through the dark on a fool’s errand, that Billy and his war hero friend were far away and laughing at me, and then I thought maybe I should turn round and go back before I was missed, so I wouldn’t have to explain it all. 

I was stood there thinking what should I do, when out of nowhere a hand took hold of my arm and I would have screamed right there if another hand hadn’t slapped over my mouth. 

_Billy_ , said a voice in my ear, and he must have felt my heart pounding as he let go of me slow. He tugged on my wrist and led the way along and down like he could see in the dark, me stumbling after him, until up ahead I saw a little fire and Mr War Hero Goodnight squatting beside it, with two horses nearby. 

When he heard us coming he stood up and kicked dust over the fire to put it out; they didn’t neither of them say anything, but Billy mounted up and held down his hand to me, and the other took my bundle and gave me a boost to get up behind him. I ain’t much for horses or riding, and I had to cling onto him for all I could; then Goodnight mounted up too and we rode off into the dark, and still it felt like a dream, that I’d done it, left the Paradise behind and gone to be with Mary again and a regular lady.

\--

‘How long will we wait?’ Goodnight had only asked it once, when they’d stopped behind the ridge above the town again and lit their tiny signal fire. 

Billy had looked at him, expressionless. ‘Until she comes,’ he’d said, in a tone that brooked no argument, and after that Goodnight had kept his doubts to himself, feeding the fire with twigs as the night darkened around them. Could Tess get away unseen and find them there? Would she have the courage to try? It was one thing to hatch a plan with Billy in the safety of the saloon, and another to steal out alone in the night, relying on the word of a pair of strangers and trusting to their kindness. 

There was nothing to do but wait, and nothing to hear but the distant bark of a dog and the mournful cry of a chuckwill. Then Billy raised his head and faded into the dark and there she was, breathless and scared, in her working clothes with a pitiful bundle of belongings tucked under one arm. It spoke to more determination than Goodnight had thought she’d show and he admired her for it, for the dream of a better life burning bright enough to bring her stumbling to them through the night.

When they halt in the greying light before dawn to snatch a few hours’ rest it’s plain enough what she expects of them: Goodnight lays out his bedroll in the shelter of some scrubby bushes and turns to her, and her hands go automatically to her buttons. 

‘Here.’ He hastily holds out a blanket. ‘Not soft sleeping, but it’s better than bare ground. Billy and I’ll take turns sitting up to watch.’ 

She takes the blanket and lies down, but her gaze follows him as he joins Billy who’s already propped against a tree with his hat tipped over his eyes. It’s no more than the world’s taught her, to offer her body in return for protection, but Goodnight wonders, as he sits facing the dawn, whether she understands any better than he does why Billy feels so compelled to help her. 

 

When they’re ready to saddle up again Billy stows Tess’s bundle behind his saddle and turns to Goodnight. ‘She’d best ride with you.’ He’s right: they don’t stand a chance of hiding their trail if anyone’s following, the three of them so distinctive together, but there’s no point exciting notice before it’s necessary. 

Goodnight considers. ‘We’ll need a story. Can’t count on avoiding company even if we stay off the road.’ 

‘I could be your sister,’ offers Tess. 

‘No,’ says Goodnight immediately, then more gently, ‘Won’t explain why you’re travelling so rough. How about a settler’s daughter who lost her folks sudden? Happened across us and we’re taking you to your cousins.’ 

‘Could work,’ approves Billy, ‘tale about road agents’ convincing enough.’ 

‘It’ll do,’ agrees Goodnight. He looks Tess over critically. She’s respectably covered-up, shawl tied tight around her waist, but the ribbon round her neck is too eye-catching, and her bare head far too noticeable. ‘Do you have a bonnet?’ 

‘A _bonnet_?’ She starts to laugh, then smothers it when she sees his expression. ‘Never exactly had need of one.’ 

‘You can’t ride around bare-headed: do you have anything else? A kerchief?’ She rummages around in her belongings and pulls out a pale lacy scarf, but Goodnight clicks his tongue in impatience. ‘You need to look like a farmgirl. Here.’ 

He unknots his cravat and hands it to her, and she winds it around her hair, tucking in the ends. ‘And the collar,’ he says, gesturing. She pulls a face at that, but unties it and puts it away in her pocket; with her hair wrapped up and plainly-dressed she looks small and wan enough to be what they claim. 

‘Let’s get going,’ says Billy, bracing a leg to help her up behind Goodnight, ‘get some distance behind us.’ 

 

They’re all tense, the first day, alert for any sign of pursuit, and Billy drops back from time to time to scout, but there’s no sign of it, their only companions gophers and loping jackrabbits. They’ve already cut away from the road into open country: across the plain would be quickest, but the terrain is flat and scrubby; their dust would be visible from miles behind, and with the extra weight they’d be hard put to outrun any pursuit. Instead, at Billy’s suggestion, they take a route parallel to the river, slower, but in the cover of the trees that straggle along the bank. 

They make it a short day’s journey and stop to camp early after the broken night before, but even so Tess seems to have found it long enough, stifling a groan as she slides from the saddle. The two of them leave her sitting, hunched and sore, while they fall into their familiar routine, unsaddling and picketing their horses; Goodnight sets out their cooking gear while Billy ranges about for firewood, and Tess sits watching them, fingers twisting nervously at a lock of hair until Billy takes pity on her and hands her the kettle. ‘Fetch us some water?’ 

Tess scowls. ‘You making fun of me? Can’t hardly move.’ 

‘Stretching your legs will help more than sitting,’ says Billy patiently, and she snatches the pot from him with an ill grace and limps away. 

When he sees Goodnight watching, face creased in sympathy, Billy asks, ‘Think she’s ever been out of town before?’ 

Goodnight shakes his head. ‘Going to be a proposition, getting all the way to Austin.’ He hopes his smile is encouraging. ‘One day at a time, huh?’ 

Tess comes back carrying the kettle full of water when Billy’s already got cornbread baking in the embers. ‘Shouldn’t have spoke so quick,’ she says, shamefaced, ‘I owe you a lot, and more by the time we get to Austin.’ 

‘Fair exchange,’ says Goodnight at once, ‘you warned us about agents on the road out of town, and we saw them ‘fore they saw us: saved us some trouble there.’ 

‘That’s Adams’ way: he was sore about the money,’ she begins but Billy cuts her off. 

‘Needn’t pay mind to him any more,’ he says fiercely. ‘Past his reach now.’ 

Though the fire is warm and they’re well hidden from view, Tess seems ill at ease, jumping at every rustle and creak, though Goodnight supposes that’s hardly surprising if she’s lived her whole life in a town. ‘You ever travelled?’ he asks curiously. 

‘Only a little ways.’ She’s eager to fill the silence. ‘When we were small Ma’s brother would come sometimes with his wagon and take us visiting to see our cousins, but once we grew up a bit they weren’t so keen to know us. Ain’t never been out here where it’s empty.’ 

‘Lot of empty here,’ smiles Goodnight, but Tess nods seriously. 

‘That’s what Lizzie used to say, all full of wolves and savages.’ 

Billy laughs at that. ‘Too many people these days – Texas is all cattle drives and forts.’ Goodnight can’t but smile: they’ll both be happier when they hit the trail back to the Sierras. ‘Take a while to get to Austin,’ Billy reassures Tess, ‘but you don’t need to worry about that.’ 

By the time dinner’s cooked and Billy shares it round it’s turning to dusk. Tess chatters on eagerly. ‘Can’t wait, though, be in the big city at last. Though I guess it’ll be small-time to you if you’ve been in ‘Frisco.’ 

‘New Orleans’ the grandest town I’ve seen,’ says Goodnight, loyal to his roots. ‘Been there a sight longer, and the houses up on the riverside are really something.’ And he describes it for both of them, the iron balconies and cobbled streets of the Vieux Carré, the broad treelined avenues full of carriages and the riverside noisy with steamships and roustabouts, while the sky blues to night above them. 

Once they’ve eaten Goodnight gets out his flask, takes a pull on it himself, then holds it out to Billy. It’s an unthinking habit, but when Billy passes it back he hesitates with it in his hand, wondering if it’s appropriate. 

‘Won’t say no,’ says Tess cheerfully and Goodnight carefully passes it to her. 

‘Let’s call it medicinal,’ he says as she takes a good pull on it. 

Tess offers it back. ‘You’re generous to share, when I ain’t paying you.’ 

‘No problem,’ says Billy at once, but she’s insistent. 

‘There’s not many would put themselves out so.’ 

Goodnight would like to demur, but the evidence is on her side. ‘Can see that some wouldn’t want to court trouble. Not everyone’s for fighting.’ 

Tess shakes her head, curls bouncing. ‘Ain’t just that. There’s plenty think they’re good, godfearing types who sit in church on Sunday, but if it’s putting themselves out for a poor widow or a girl that’s simple, they can’t turn their back fast enough. Some of the men in town said Sadie no when she was looking for work, but they ain’t backward in putting coins in her hand now.’ 

It’s an ugly world she’s describing, and the distance between her experience and his own gives Goodnight another uncomfortable tinge of guilt. ‘Wasn’t there anyone took concern for her?’ he asks as he passes back his flask. ‘Not even the preacher?’

Tess laughs. ‘Preachers? They ain’t hardly better.’ The drink’s tempered her usual wariness, and she warms to her theme with a hard humour that he reads as genuine. ‘Most of ‘em want what all men want, just won’t admit it: I’ve known some ask a girl to pray with ‘em, or offer to cure her of her moral affliction, and the cure turned out to be the laying-on of hands right enough.’ 

He’s amused despite himself, and Billy too, and a detached part of himself sees how Tess leans into their approval. ‘I guess there’s one or two really care about the state of our immortal souls, and want to rescue us from sin: Mary says there’s one comes round to the place where she works every month or so, offering them sewing work and lodging with a respectable family.’ 

Goodnight’s stomach sinks like a stone, though he keeps his tone light as he asks, ‘She never wanted to take him up on it?’ He won’t meet Billy’s eye, but even across the fire he can sense his tension. 

‘Not her,’ says Tess, oblivious, ‘she knows when she’s well off. Place she works is top-class, not a two-bit joint like Adams’ – it’s gentlemen with fine manners she sees, and generous with their cash too.’ She lowers her voice, conspiratorial. ‘One of ‘em, she’s his favourite, he bought her a whole outfit in blue silk so he can see her well-dressed. Be a change when I’m there, right enough, and no more having to suck cock for grubby miners.’ 

His wince at her coarseness is probably too evident, but fortunately Billy cuts over him. ‘We’ll be some long days riding, but you’ll get used to it. Shouldn’t be more than two-three weeks, even off the road.’ 

He’s so matter-of-fact: Goodnight scans his face. _He knew. He must have known_ , and on the heels of that, _he duped me_. Mind churning, he barely pays attention to Tess’ stream of chatter, and as soon as he can he mutters something about first watch and takes himself a little way away to brood as Billy and Tess turn in. 

 

The two of them have learnt each others’ sleeping patterns over time: Goodnight knows Billy’s restless shifting before he settles, the deepening rhythm of his breath as he surrenders, the cadence of his dreams and the stutter of his nightmare; though he lies still, he’s certain Billy isn’t asleep. 

When the moon comes out from the clouds and Tess begins to snore he picks up a pebble and tosses it to bounce off his side; Billy doesn’t bother to dissemble, just gets up and jerks his head, and Goodnight rises to his feet to follow him. Once they’re at a safe distance, beyond their dozing horses, ‘If you’ve got a problem,’ says Billy flatly, ‘you can say so.’ 

‘My problem,’ says Goodnight tightly, ‘is that we’ve busted her out of Adams’ clutches just to deliver her to another pimp, a man she doesn’t even know, so she can go on whoring for someone else. That’s not what I thought we were doing.’ 

‘You thought we were saving her.’ There’s no inflection to the comment, but it flicks him on the raw. 

‘I thought we were giving her a chance of a different life. Taking a risk so she didn’t have to be a whore. Not just so another man could make money off her.’ He steps closer so he can see Billy’s face. ‘You knew, didn’t you?’ 

Billy stares him down. ‘Of course I knew. She asked me and I said yes.’ 

The admission startles him. ‘But what if the new man’s no better? What if we’re just taking her from one brute to another?’ He’s genuinely perplexed, but Billy turns away. 

‘I was stupid to think you’d understand.’ 

‘Well I sure as hell won’t unless you tell me.’ 

Billy’s agitated, accent thickening. ‘It’s up to her what she does. Not Adams, not you, not me: we don’t get to judge for her.’ 

‘But how is this going to help?’ Goodnight’s struggling: there’s more to this than just Tess’s predicament. He goes up behind Billy and says quietly, ‘Tell me. Let me understand.’ 

‘When-‘ says Billy, then runs out of words. 

‘The contract,’ prompts Goodnight, and Billy bows his head, forcing the words out. 

‘Do you know what it’s like – I thought what I signed was an agreement, but when I came here I found I had nothing.’ Goodnight reaches out and then thinks better of it: Billy’s wound tight with tension. ‘There was no one to complain to, no one to help: I had to find my own way.’ 

So that’s it: it’s not Tess he’s doing this for, not any girl, but for his younger self, trying to be the hand he reached for and never found. Billy comes closer, his words urgent. ‘We’re not saving her, Goody. We don’t redeem her, make her into what we think she should be. We give her a choice.’ 

‘I-‘ starts Goodnight, but Billy cuts him off abruptly. ‘If you don’t want to be part of it, you can go ahead and wait for me in Austin.’

‘Ain’t going to be doing that,’ says Goodnight. It sits uneasily with him, he can’t deny, risking confrontation and stretching their resources to take a girl to a better class of whorehouse: but he thinks he understands, a little. Billy’s question resonates with him: _do you know what it’s like to sign up to something, then find yourself trapped?_

He sees in his mind’s eye his younger self, brave and careless, cheerfully enlisting for the regiment: he’d not had the smallest inkling of what awaited him, the war that would chew him up and spit him out a wreck of a man, rattling with guilt and paralysed with fear. Of course it’s not the same – he didn’t deserve anything different, none of them did - but he wonders about Billy, about contracts and magistrates and papers in a tongue he doesn’t understand, and about where he was before he struck out alone. 

Billy’s right: Tess deserves to make her choice for herself. If this is all she has, all she can hope for, shouldn’t they help her realise her dream, flawed and clouded though it might seem? It’s a long time before he sleeps, lying and watching Billy’s dark outline against the starlit sky, but by morning, when Tess stirs awake Goodnight’s able to greet her with a friendly smile and a promise that she’ll soon be where she wants. 

\--

I knew it would be a week or two riding, sleeping out in the open, but soon’s we’d put Copperhead a good way behind, I was looking around for another town, or a farm at least, but it was all dusty land and rocks as far as I could see. Billy saw me looking about and told me, ‘Shouldn’t see anyone for a day or two: we’re taking the long way, away from the road. If anyone comes after us we’ll see their dust.’ 

I didn’t think Adams would really send men after me – he needed Amos and Joe in the bar, didn’t he, and what’s one girl to him? Maybe he’d already got Ella to fill my place – then I remembered the silver dollars I’d taken that were still tucked in with my clothes, and that gave me a little cold prickling even though the sun was hot.

But we were getting on so fast I reckoned it couldn’t be so far to Austin, and in the while the two of them were as kind as they could be. I’d thought maybe once we got away, I’d be laying for the both of them, and if that was the price of the journey then I’d happily pay it: like I said, they were both good-looking men, and even if they wouldn’t treat me as respectful once we were out of town, it was only for a short time. But from that first night they let me sleep on my own and kept their distance, and all they seemed to want was a thank-you for the blanket. I tried my best to be useful to them, if they didn’t want laying, but there wasn’t so much I could do: in the evenings Billy would hunt up food while Goodnight set up the fire and cooked, and then we’d sit round the fire a while and talk. 

It’s the first thing a whore learns, how to get a man talking: there’s some are shy and won’t say nothing, but most of ‘em are fond of the sound of their own voice, want to sound off about their opinions or tell you their life story, and while they’re talking they’re putting down money for drinks without noticing. In Copperhead it had been Billy talking with me, asking about how things were, but out here it was Mr War Hero who did most of the talking, and Billy didn’t seem to say so much, just sat and looked into the fire while his pard rattled on. 

Goodnight didn’t need much coaxing, though, and being he’d said he was from New Orleans way I was curious to know more, because his clothes and his manners said money, yet here he was scratching a living out in the ass-end of nowhere. So I asked him a little about where he come from, and he warmed up right away, telling tales of him and his sisters when they were young: and sure enough, though he didn’t say it straight out, he hadn’t wanted for anything. It just took a question here and there, and he’d tell about times he and his cousins raced their horses along Spanish Town Road, or how his sisters entertained their beaus and had dancing lessons, and never a thing about work or want. 

The way he told it, was all visits and parties and entertainments; that’s the life I’d want, I told him, don’t know why you ain’t gone back, and I didn’t say, _riding about out here with a Chinaman, when you could be there living the high life_. He looked sad then, and said it was all gone, that the war had come and the house was burnt down, and right that it should be. I didn’t believe it, myself, that it could all be gone just like that – after all, he said his sisters were still living there in Baton Rouge, and it didn’t sound like they were working women or their husbands poor. 

After he’d finished talking and we lay down to sleep I’d picture to myself what it would be like to live in a house like that, with fine furniture and silverware, a different dress to put on each day and a maid to wait on me. I even thought, once or twice, how it might be – he was kind and handsome, just like I’d thought my husband would be when I was a girl, and if we went go back to Louisiana and I met his sisters, he could say, ‘This is Miss Lawlor,’ and we wouldn’t have to tell about where I came from, would we? 

\--

Billy’s never heard any of these stories before: why would he? Goody’s told him a bare outline of his time in the army, and a whole lot more in confused fragments when he’s shuddering in the aftermath of a nightmare; he’s told him a lot about his travels since and his exploits with the famous Sam Chisolm; and he’s told him a little of his childhood, stories of him and his cousins with their raft on the bayou. Billy hadn’t looked to know more: for himself, he’d given away far less. But now he finds himself sharing a wealth of reminiscences he never expected. 

Though he’d realised Goodnight’s family were wealthy, he’d dismissed it in the same way Goody seemed to, as irrelevant to the life he lived now. But each evening Tess sets herself to draw him in and prompts a tumbling cascade of memories: engagement parties and picnics on the riverbank, horses for racing and money to gamble away.

It’s an alien world to Billy, and though he knows it’s past and gone, still a coil of resentment constricts his chest as he listens: who saddled the horses or rubbed them down after? Who fed the stove and baked the pies and carried all the china and baskets half a mile from the house so the family could picnic? 

Goody sees it in his face, sometimes, stumbles to silence and tries to change the subject, but Tess isn’t easily put off. She’s good at it, he can see that, teasing and misremembering with artless interest until Goody forgets his reluctance, the memories bright in his mind’s eye, and then it’s, ‘We’d drive over to my uncle’s to spend a few days…’ or ‘She swore she’d never speak to him again, but that didn’t last two weeks…’ and Billy sitting silent again on the other side of the fire. 

If they’re alone for a moment, Goody will sometimes say awkwardly, ‘Sorry for gabbing on,’ but there’s no chance to speak about it, even if he could frame the words. Apart from the threat of pursuit, there’s always the possibility of a chance encounter, and out here a woman alone is in danger, so one of them is always with her while the other hunts or forages or bathes. Besides, he shouldn’t grudge Goody the pleasure his reminiscences bring: it’s his past, after all, whatever he feels about it now; and he can’t blame Tess either, though if he was willing to admit it, his pride is pricked by the way that her attention has shifted to Goody, that out here he’s no more to her than a means to an end. 

_This was my idea_ , he reminds himself, and he’s determined to see it through, _only a week or two_ , but try as he might he feels something in him shrinking day by day, his new expansiveness closing down again as he sits at the fire, gun and cleaning rag in hand.

 

Late one afternoon they ford a creek and make camp just beyond, glad of the opportunity to bathe. First he, then Goody, scrub and sluice in the sparkling shallows, and when Goody comes striding back buttoning a clean shirt, his suspenders hanging, Tess takes the soap and a fresh chemise with a cheerful, ‘No peeking, now!’ 

‘I know what happened to Actaeon,’ says Goody gallantly, but as soon as she’s disappeared into the bushes he turns to Billy, rubbing his hair dry. ‘Y’know, we’ve not seen a hair of anyone trailing her – maybe we could let up some?’ 

‘Shouldn’t let our guard down.’ It’s absurd, this is Goodnight, his partner, but Billy feels an awkwardness that sets his teeth on edge. 

‘Guess so.’ Goodnight gathers up his shirt and holds out a hand. ‘Want me to wring yours out while I’m at it?’ 

It’s a delicate attempt to put things right, but Billy feels that if he opens his mouth he doesn’t know what will come out, accusation or apology. Instead he snatches up his gun. ‘Get us some meat before sundown,’ he calls over his shoulder as he strides away along the bank, cursing himself inwardly.

He takes himself upstream, far enough to be undisturbed, and when the bushes grow thick and tangled he finds a clearing and ducks into cover to wait. His passage has scared the wildlife into hiding, but he sits motionless, pistol on his knee, heartbeat gradually ticking down, until the mockingbirds start to call again overhead, the gophers stick their heads cautiously from their holes and finally a sagehen scuttles into view, scratching in the dirt for bugs. He raises his gun smoothly, aims, and – _crack!_ – the snap of a twig and the swish of branches send it fluttering up in alarm as Goody crunches into the clearing. 

‘Spoilt my chance.’ Billy stands up to look at him accusingly. 

‘Sorry,’ says Goody, cheerfully. Billy raises an eyebrow. ‘Left her to tend the fire.’ Goody shrugs. ‘She wants the occupation.’ 

‘Doesn’t take two to hunt,’ objects Billy, but Goody ignores him. 

‘We’ll hear if she shouts.’ His lips twitch. ‘And roast fowl’s a tempting idea.’ 

He comes to join Billy in his cover. ‘Won’t come back if you keep chattering,’ says Billy, trying hard to sound stern, and Goody smiles sideways. 

‘True.’ He makes himself comfortable beside him and the two of them go back to waiting, dustmotes dancing in the shafts of setting sunlight that pierce through the leaves. Goody’s newly-scrubbed scent beside him mingles with crushed grass and earth, and Billy relaxes into the silence, the two of them still and alert to the tiny sounds and movements: a droning fly, tentative rustles in the boughs above. 

The gophers are first to re-emerge, quick and busy, then a rabbit hops past, too nervous for a shot; eventually another sagehen comes pushing through the grass, neck outstretched as it chases a cricket. Before Billy can take aim there’s a motion in the corner of his eye and the crack of a clean shot sends the bird tumbling as the gophers dive for cover. 

‘Quick,’ says Billy grudgingly. 

Goody uncoils himself and goes to pick up his prize. ‘Wait for another?’ he asks. 

The birds will be cautious: they’ll have as long to wait and longer, but, ‘Sure,’ he says, and something inside him lifts as they settle back into their cover side by side. 

On the way back, a brace of birds in hand, Goody suggests tentatively, ‘If we came across a family travelling, might be we could get them to take her the rest of the way to Austin...’ 

‘No,’ says Billy, looking ahead to the fire and Tess cross-legged beside it, combing out her hair. ‘We’ll see the job through.’ 

\--

We seemed to have been riding forever, and dull it was too: Billy made us keep off the road so we never saw no one else – he said the three of us together, a white man and an oriental and an unmarried woman, would attract attention of a kind we wouldn’t want. So if we came to a farm we passed it by, and only once we went near a town: Billy said for Goodnight to go in on his own to buy what we needed, that no one would be looking at one drifter on a horse. He was right, I could see that, but I would have given a lot for a night or two in a proper soft bed and a chance to wash myself and my clothes, and not in a creek. Instead it was days of riding through not very much, and dinners of stew in a billycan over a fire, and hard sleeping with stones sticking in me, and I couldn’t see how anyone would choose a life like this, so dull and dirty. 

I knew I was a sight, my chemise and stockings black with dirt and my hair gone flat under Goodnight’s scarf, but I told myself it was only for a little while and things would be better after; though what Mary would think, and the other girls with her, when I came riding up I didn’t know – I’d always imagined it that one day I’d take the stage and step down in the city with her waiting there for me, not come tumbling off the back of a horse in front of everyone all sore and draggletail. 

I kept thinking we must be near the city by now, and looking out for it, but every time we topped a hill there was just more empty country in front of us. Then one morning we came out at the top of another valley and the two of them stopped and took issue what to do: Billy was for sticking to the ridge so we could see if there was anyone behind us, but Goodnight said that we should go down to the river, that there’d be fish we could catch and maybe a pool to swim in. They argued it around for a while, laughing some about eating frogs, and in the end Goodnight got his way and we went down through the trees. 

There wasn’t nothing to see, just trees every way you looked, but it was cool and quiet, the leaves thick over us, and that and the horses’ hooves pacing along about put me to sleep; then all on a sudden Goodnight pulled up short and I had to grab on tight to him not to fall off. 

Right in front of us was a big stretch of stumps where the trees had been cut down, and on a thick trunk in the middle in the sunshine were two men sat side by side. I heard Billy say, ‘Damn,’ under his breath, and he looked over at Goodnight quick-like: you could see they’d been hard at it, two axes stuck in the sides of a tree, and if they’d been chopping wood we would have heard them far away. But now we’d come blundering in on them sitting and passing an earthenware bottle between them.

‘Howdy,’ said one of the men, standing up: he was a good-sized man, dark and tough-looking, but beside the other he looked small: his pard was a big fat mountain of a man, bald and with arms the size of hams. ‘Don’t get so many passing by up here.’ 

‘Howdy,’ said Goodnight in return. ‘Don’t mean to interrupt your work.’ 

‘We wasn’t working,’ said the big bald man, squinting at us. ‘Been at it since first light.’ 

They looked at Billy and Mr War Hero, and they looked at their weapons, but mostly they stared at me, and I’d all but forgot what that was like: from their faces they hadn’t seen a woman in a month, eyes flicking back and forth from my stockings where my skirt was tucked up for riding to my bosom. 

‘We’re headed for Fort Griffin,’ said Goodnight, ‘got turned around on ourselves somewhere back in the hills, and now we’re looking for the shortest way.’ 

I saw what he intended, to tell them a false trail, and they seemed to believe it: ‘Lumber’s for Lyntonville,’ said the dark man, jerking his head to where an ox was waiting patiently in harness to a wagon, ‘and that’s on your way. Could wait a while and follow me and Mose back.’ 

Billy and Goodnight looked at each other, and Billy said, ‘Can’t take the time to wait – if you can tell us the direction, we’ll get on.’ 

Mose lumbered to his feet and come closer, right by the horse where he could grin up at me. ‘Sure? Young lady’d be more comfortable in the wagon. You could sit up on the box with me, and then everyone could see you so pretty.’ 

‘She don’t need to be showing herself off,’ said Goodnight, and he sounded as prim as a preacher, but wasn’t hardly the first time I’d had a man stare at me like that. 

‘You’ll know me again for looking,’ I told the fat man, ‘but looking’s all you’ll be doing and not over my stocking-tops neither.’ 

Soon’s I said it I knew I’d done wrong: the fat man turned to his pard with a grin like it would stretch round his head, and the other said, ‘Now that’s plain enough, ain’t it?’ He smiled at me all wet and eager. ‘You want to get down and step this way, Missy, I can give you a ride of a different kind.’ 

‘Who says you get to go first, Wyatt?’ leered the other, elbowing him. 

‘Ain’t no cause to be talking that way,’ said Goodnight sharply. 

‘I ain’t-‘ I started, but Wyatt cut in, ‘Can’t tell me she’s no shrinking violet, speaking as bold as that; don’t seem no mystery why you’ve got her out here.’ He picked up their the bottle. ‘Now we’ve good liquor in this crock, and enough to share; and maybe sharing’s what we can do?’ 

Wasn’t it just what Adams used to say, when he was trying to make us scared, that a group of miners would take us away to use between them: but Goodnight curled his fingers on the grip of his gun and said to them, ‘I’ll tell you my name, it’s Goodnight Robicheaux, and this is my partner Billy Rocks; and we ain’t looking for interference in our affairs.’ 

The pair of ‘em looked at each other when they heard the name, and Wyatt backed up a little, holding up his hands. ‘Ain’t no call to get twitchy about it.’ He pointed away down the hill. ‘Road’s that-a-way, take you across the river to Lyntonville.’ He leered again. ‘Plenty of work for her there if it’s occupation she’s looking for.’ 

Billy and Goodnight didn’t say nothing to that, just kicked up their horses; but I heard Mose snickering, ‘On her back,’ as we rode off. 

I could tell they was both angry, though they didn’t say nothing to me then: Billy just said, when we were well past them, ‘Should have stuck to the hill,’ and Goodnight said, ‘Should have been looking out better ‘stead of nodding off,’ and it sounded like they were blaming each other and quarrelling, though they weren’t. 

They stopped for a minute to water the horses once we’d crossed the river, and when Billy lifted me down from the saddle I asked him, ‘You think they’ll be following us?’ 

‘They won’t catch us up in an ox-cart,’ said Billy practical-like, but Mr War Hero Goodnight turned on me quick. 

‘Wouldn’t be our fault if they did. You should have hid your face, like a farmgirl who’s scared of company.’ Always a woman’s fault, ain’t it: seems that don’t change.

‘In case you ain’t noticed,’ I told him, ‘I wasn’t taught to play at being shy and wait for a man to ask permission to hold my hand: if I couldn’t learn to look a man in the eye without blushing my family would have gone hungry.’ 

He had the grace to look embarrassed at that, and Billy said, like he couldn’t hear us quarrel, ‘They’ll be heading back to town with the lumber, not after us.’ 

Goodnight stepped back. ‘Just –‘ he couldn’t meet my eye. ‘If it happens again, act more scared.’

 

Was the first time he’d spoke harsh to me, and ‘course there was nowhere to go to get away: Billy took me up on the horse behind him, he said to make the riding even, but I could tell he thought best keep us apart. And as I jolted along behind him I had nothing but time to think about what he’d said, and it stung me: I couldn’t act like a lady, not even like a common farmgirl: I was too much a whore, bred in the blood like people said. And I realised how dumb I’d been to think that a man like Mr War Hero might take me to meet his family or think of marrying me. 

When we finally set to camp it was a night like any other, three of us around the fire, but I didn’t tease Goodnight for his stories and he didn’t offer; instead he started in with talk about the shows they could run in Austin and how they could make the crowd pay better; was as dull as ditchwater to me after a while, but Billy turned more talkative and they sat and jawed back and forth, laughing and joking and paying no more mind to me than if I’d been a bump on a log. 

I thought then about the way those woodsmen had looked at me – you could see in their faces what they wanted, in their mind they already had me stripped off and waiting – but Goodnight and Billy, they never paid me no more mind than if I’d been a tree or a horse. There I was, willing and owing them, but Billy treated me like I was another man, and Goodnight like I was a little girl: they didn’t need a woman to cook for them or to keep them company or for laying – they were happy just the two of them.

Gave me time to watch them together, when they were talking together like they’d forgot they had company, and ‘cause I was really looking, I saw how Goodnight gazed at Billy more often than not, and how his face looked when he did it, and how he’d look away quick and crack a joke when he thought Billy might notice. I’ve seen that look on a man’s face often enough, though not usually for his pard. And I remembered some things then which hadn’t seemed so important: how neither of them wanted us girls in the Paradise, Billy only pretending with me, how Goodnight had been all flustered that first time he found me upstairs in their room, and how quick he’d stood up when Billy was in trouble; now they all seemed like pieces of a puzzle to put side by side to make a picture.

But then I thought, no mind to me if Mr War Hero has eyes for Billy: after all, they were just taking me where I wanted to be, and at the end of it I’d be with Mary again and we’d have our life together. Even if whoring was all I’d ever do, I‘d be in a better place, and might be I’d find a man like Mary’s who’d keep me for himself. Then maybe we could even have our own house to live in, no one to boss us or take the money we earned, and when I looked in the fire I made out in my head how it would be, seeing in the flames the silk dress I’d have, and a hat to match and a little parasol, and the storekeepers bowing to me when I went in through their door.

Last thing that night when I pulled the blanket over me I thought of Mary, and how surprised she’d be when she saw I was there. Last time I remember her she was still a girl, and now we’re both women grown – and I wondered then, what would she be like? I still think of her like she was ‘fore she left, with her hair in two braids and a print dress: would I know her in her fine clothes and hat, looking like a lady? And what would she think when she saw me jump off the back of a horse in my shawl and scarf? But then I thought how we were together all those years, close as twins, and surely that wouldn’t change, it would be just like when we were girls; and I remembered how we’d lie in bed together at night and tell each other tales, and this time no one would send her away from me. 

\--

Goodnight’s spirits have risen, the closer they get to their goal: less than a week should see their task completed and Tess safely with her sister. It’s taken them out of their way and their supplies are low, but Austin by all accounts is wild enough to be profitable for them. And then he and Billy will take off again, to wander and adventure, and everything as it should be again. 

The encounter with the woodsmen has left Tess subdued: these last nights she’s pressed him less for reminiscences of his past, and he’s made a point to coax from her some memories of childhood, stories of her sister and brother and the uncle and cousins she once had. He’s relieved to think that whether or not the life ahead of her can meet her expectations, she’ll have the comfort of family again. 

The uninterrupted rhythm of the journey has made them slack, even Billy: when they began one or other of them was always alert, snatching a few hours’ rest in between, but so far from Copperhead they’re less wary, and when they camp at the foot of a bluff Billy climbs up to scan the surrounding night for a fire, and comes back confident enough to settle and doze with his back to the rockface, while Tess and Goodnight sleep.

It’s the nightmare that saves them, that and Billy’s reflexes. Goodnight’s dream winds through with foreboding, belongings lost or vanished, tasks left undone; he mounts a stair in a darkened hall, footsteps faint behind him, a pursuit he can’t outrun. Close, and closer, he feels the presence on his heels; he’s paralysed, he can’t turn around – and he wrenches himself awake, heart hammering. 

He draws a shaky breath, _only a dream_ – but a shape moves in the dark, unmistakeable. Through the fear that paralyses him all over again he shouts a warning, and his cry wakes Billy, who seizes his knives, instantly alert, and slips silently away. Tess sits up, exclaiming wildly, ‘It’s them! The brothers!’ 

‘Ain’t no one’s brother,’ says a voice, and she gasps as Goodnight scrambles to his feet, the steadying weight of his rifle in his hands. The man in front of them is heavyset, in a travelstained duster coat, and he’s no amateur: he’s menacingly calm, pistol aimed squarely at Goodnight’s chest. 

Tess makes to back away, but the man addresses her directly. ‘Don’t think of running, you dumb bitch. Adams wants you back,’ and only then does Goodnight realise he’s seen him before, behind the Paradise’s bar. 

‘He ain’t having her,’ he growls, his own gun steady; Billy’ll be moving round to flank him.

‘Drop the gun,’ warns Amos, ‘Eli’s got you covered.’ 

A movement to Goodnight’s right shows he’s not bluffing, but Goodnight holds his aim. ‘He’s not the only one out there,’ and Eli jumps with a curse as a knife whistles in to land at his feet. 

‘Seems we got us a standoff,’ observes Amos. ‘Adams wants her back. Ain’t no one makes off with his whores, and he’ll have payment for the use you’ve had of her.’ 

‘It ain’t like that-’ says Goodnight, but Amos spits. 

‘Course it is. Turned her head, told her to thieve what she could, and you’d take her off for the pair of you.’ _Thieve?_ Goodnight risks a glance at Tess, who’s got both her hands bunched in her skirt, but her eyes are fixed on Amos. ‘Plenty of talk in the last town we passed, ‘bout two drifters and the whore they’d snagged.’ 

‘You come looking for me?’ Tess doesn’t seem as distressed as Goodnight expected. 

‘He’ll have you back,’ Amos tells her. ‘Man don’t like being cheated of what’s his own.’ 

‘She’s not property,’ says Goodnight, gun still levelled, ‘she can go where she wants.’ 

Eli is moving slowly, and Goodnight can’t keep him and Amos in sight at once, but, ‘Hold it,’ orders Billy, materialising out of the dark behind him with a flash of metal. 

‘Back off,’ he says to Amos. ‘You can tell your boss she wasn’t interested.’ 

‘Let’s hear it from her,’ demands Amos, and Tess shrinks as they all look to her. 

‘I-‘ Her hands twist in her skirt again, then to Goodnight’s astonishment she breaks and darts to Amos’ side. ‘They made me do it, the two of ‘em together.’ 

Goodnight can only stare openmouthed as Amos grabs her by the arm. ‘Daresay they made you take those six dollars too.’ 

She hunches close to him, face turned away; Billy says hoarsely, ‘You don’t have to do this,’ despair clear in his voice. 

‘Told her she could do what she wants five minutes ago,’ mocks Eli, ‘don’t sound to me like she wants to be with you.’ 

‘You don’t have to go back,’ repeats Goodnight hopelessly, but Tess turns to Amos, determined. 

‘Adams wants me at the Paradise?’ 

‘Ain’t come chasing all this way for his fancy. Get your stuff.’ He gestures with his gun and Goodnight steps back as Tess gathers up her bundle. 

‘Tess,’ says Billy, one last appeal, but she won’t look at him. 

‘What about the money from them?’ asks Eli, but Goodnight growls, ‘Don’t push your luck.’ 

‘C’mon.’ Amos grabs Tess by the arm again and he and Eli back away, guns raised, until they disappear into the dark, Billy and Goodnight left staring at each other, weapons still in hand.

 

In the aftermath of a fight there’s always something to do: check for injuries, calm the horses, gather up knives and clean guns. But this time there’s nothing wrong, nothing out of place: a camp with two bedrolls, their horses still picketed, their gear untouched; just the faintest of lingering scents and a hollow absence they both feel.

It’s the first time Goodnight’s seen Billy shocked, the energy drained from him; he doesn’t say anything, just tucks his gun into his waistband and squats down to rekindle the fire. He thinks he hears the sound of horses, distant and fast. 

The fire burns up and it’s like the aftermath of a true nightmare: Goodnight sits down and stretches his hands to the heat, and after a little while Billy drops down next to him. It Billy who finally breaks the silence. ‘You can say it. I’m a fool.’ 

Goodnight shuffles closer so he can bump his shoulder. ‘I don’t think you’re a fool.’ 

Billy stares into the flames. ‘Must have tracked us a long way. Those woodsmen…’ 

‘Can’t go rewriting the past. They’d have found her, one way or another.’ 

Billy shakes his head. ‘I don’t…we were so close. Why didn’t she trust us?’ 

‘Takes courage, to break with what you know, trust to a future you can’t see.’ 

‘It isn’t right.’ 

He sounds hopeless, and what can Goodnight say but the truth? 'It ain’t. But you can’t make the world be as you want it.’ 

Billy falls silent again: his face is pinched and cold even though the fire’s bright. Goodnight shifts closer again so their sides are pressed warm together, and asks quietly, ‘Were you scared? When you ran?’

It’s halting at first – perhaps it’s the first time he’s ever told this story, Goodnight realises – but the tale Billy tells is compelling, a bloody and desperate fight for survival: Goodnight doesn’t interrupt or question, just listens, and when it’s done, he says simply, ‘Not everyone’s as brave as you.’ 

‘I thought-‘ Billy shakes his head again. ‘I thought I could make it different. Get her a happy ending.’ 

‘Not sure any of us gets that.’ 

Billy turns to him in surprise. ‘I did.’ 

That startles a laugh from him before he can think. ‘Not everyone would call it that: a hard life of fighting and killing, bounty on your head, living hand to mouth, no home...’ 

Billy kicks his foot. ‘You know what I mean.’ He’s back to staring into the flames. ‘So many ways it might have gone. If we’d never met. If I’d listened to sense instead of your stories and gone on alone. A life like that … and now I have all this.’ Goodnight swallows, touched to the heart that he can be _all this_ for beautiful scarred Billy. 

Billy sighs. ‘You want to go on to Austin?’ His heart’s clearly not in it, and neither is Goodnight’s. 

‘Don’t need a big city to make money. Have to get food soon, but we can buy that anyplace. That and bad whisky.’ Their shows have only ever been a means to an end. 

‘Hit the trail West again?’ suggests Billy. 

‘Find some empty,’ smiles Goodnight in return. 

He leans forward to feed another branch to the fire, unwilling to break the bubble of intimacy; Billy shifts, and he half-expects him to move away, but instead when Goodnight shifts back he feels an arm across his shoulders and a weight of comfort he can lean into. 

Neither of them moves or speaks; it’s grounding, safe, a gate opened and a road in front of them, but no hurry to walk through it. Instead they sit under the stars in the silence of the night, and Goodnight rests his head, thinking about the meaning of _home_.

\--

Adams blacked my eye for me, of course, and knocked me around some, and he made sure the rest all saw it when we came back; he said he ought break my fingers for stealing from him, though from the bruises Joe still had I reckoned I wasn’t the only one he thought to blame. First few days were bad, Netty and the others giving me the cold shoulder and talking behind their hands, but wasn’t one of them wouldn’t have done the same thing if they dared, and after a little while when the marks faded everything went back to the way it was before, and Adams seemed to forget it too. Only thing that’s different is that since I’ve been back again he has me up to sleep in his bed and Louisa down in the whores’ room again. He says it’s so he has me under his eye, but I guess it means something that he came all that way for to get me back again.

Why didn’t I put up a fight to go with them, when I’d worked so hard for the chance? That’s something I’ve asked myself over and over, in the night with Adams snoring next to me, or in the morning when I take the basin out to empty and look up to the bluffs in the distance. Why did I stick with the Paradise when it came to it? For a while I thought it was because I was dumb and scared, no use to anyone, just a stupid whore, all the things Adams says to us: if I’d had any courage I would have seen it through, but I was weak and scared, and whoring all I was good for. 

And then after, I began to think it was them, Billy and Mr War Hero Goodnight: they didn’t want me. They wanted to help me, or least Billy did and Goodnight wanted whatever Billy wanted, but they were too busy looking at each other to see me. Would it have been different, with a man who wanted me for me, maybe to marry and have a life together? Would it have let me be braver? Maybe it would, if he’d have taken my arm and said, _You and me, Tess, together_. But Billy and Goodnight, they just wanted to take me where I was going and then ride away: I wasn’t ever going to be part of their story. 

But then last night, after the last customer went, I took a cigarette outside and stood on the stoop; the town was all quiet, just the sound of Joe sweeping up inside, and the moon high and round over the river. Was just like when me and Mary would look at it out of our window in bed when we were girls, and I felt a thousand years old. So much done in so short a time, like my life had just taken turn after turn and carried me with it. Would it have been like I thought it would, with Mary? She promised those fine silks and boots, but was it me she wanted, her sister, or just another girl to join them? And silk or cotton, gentleman or ploughboy, whoring’s still whoring, ain’t it? 

All this time I’d built it up and up, and maybe it was like the stories Tom would tell when Ma was sick: _I’ll get a farm and be a rich man, and I’ll have a big house where we can all live and a fine horse to ride and we’ll have cherry pie every dinnertime_. We all knew it wasn’t ever going to be true, but we said we believed it and talked about the farm and the house and the dinners, because if we hadn’t had then we might have had to look at what was in front of us instead. Maybe going to Austin to be with Mary was my story like that, and going there might have meant finding it wasn’t true.

And I wonder too what happened to the two of them, Mr War Hero Goodnight in his fancy vest and Chinaman Billy all silent and watchful, where they went and what they did after, though I guess I won’t ever know.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Speak to me: fontainebleau22.tumblr.com


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